DSL Prime News Briefs

Chip production difficulties, Verizon's 3 Mbps DSL, Vikas Bajaj, Jon Arnold, Esme Vos, Charlie Hall, Blair Levin, Rebecca Arbogast, Christopher King, David Kaut & Nicole Salemme of Legg Mason to Stifel Nicolaus, Anton Wahlman.

by Dave Burstein of DSL Prime and Future of TV [December 5, 2005]

Corrections:

• Apologies to Bruce Leichtman for the misspelling, and thanks for the data he shared.
  
  
• In "Will DSL Modems Go Soft?" a June 2000 PC World article I just found while searching for something else, Eric Brown reported Motorola and PCTel were ready to run a DSL modem in software on a Pentium. I was quoted in the article, and remembered that soon after I gave my opinion that DSL chipmakers had a long run problem: PC's would probably have DSL built in, not needing the digital chipset. Five years later, I'm clearly wrong. Nearly no one is running DSL soft modems. Fortunately, when PC World asked, I saw things correctly. "Soft modem technology is at best unproven, and costs between 150 and 200 MHz of processor—that's a big hit for $5 to $10 maximum savings" in manufacturing, says Dave Burstein. By a year or two later, my opinion changed and I thought soft modems running on spare Pentium cycles would be an important factor.

E-mail

• "I really like your staying on top of the chip providers to deliver what they promise for a change," writes a friend who builds millions of broadband ports. Chip vendors are under even more pressure to make false promises these days, with hundreds of millions of dollars in orders pending, largely dependent on who can deliver first. Carriers need the speed for video and to out shout the competition, but there are still plenty of kinks to work out on the way to completely reliable VDSL2. The hyperbole is high, and I'm doing my best to get hard data. Results from the field, on or off the record, especially welcome.

Briefs

• Recent chip production difficulties are over, Broadcom s Rick Hodgman tells Digitimes, with plenty of capacity for both fabrication and packaging. However, Matt Rhodes of Conexant still sees some backend capacity tightness and Marvell adds Q1 wafer supply is on allocation, Michael Masdea of CSFB reports. A factory fire and brief surge in demand had added weeks to many production schedules.
  
  
• Verizon's three Meg DSL is proving solid for me. The latest C-in-C, 350 Meg, came across in 26 minutes at an average rate or 225 KB.

Press

• Vikas Bajaj was a strong telecom reporter in Texas, but since he came to work for the Times in New York has been on assignments that are more general. Therefore, I was glad to see his byline on an article about funding rural broadband, including the important data point that a program for unserved rural areas provided "$103.4 million in loans to suburban areas, including $45.6 million to 19 affluent new subdivisions just outside Houston." While Bajaj reports calls for more aggressive spending, he also notes $30.4 million is already in default although the program has just begun. I've reviewed several of the loans granted, where the investment was four times as much as seemed prudent.
  
  
• A Times article totally irrelevant to the DSL Prime topic reports with relish the trend to hire famous chefs to cook at home, paying $2,000 per meal and up to half a million dollars an evening. We all like to fantasize, but the paper needs to spend some ink as well on those who have trouble paying their phone bills.

People

• Jon Arnold started a blog after he left Frost and Sullivan to start J Arnold & Associates and just a few months later has been nominated for "Best Canadian Business Blog" at http://cba.myblahg.com/.
  
  
• Esme Vos is in the running for Best Independent Tech Blog of 2005 at http://www.techweb.com/blogawards/vote.html. I was proud to vote for Muniwireless because of the enormous effect Vos is having on actual deployments. Muniwireless has informed a worldwide community about what is possible.
  
  
• Charlie Hall of The Online Reporter chose his home in Baton Rouge when he moved from New York partly because he needed to be sure of a high-speed broadband connection to send out his newsletters. He rejected a much better deal on the banks of Lake Maurepas in Ascension parish because he wasn't sure of a good connection for his work. Now he's chagrined because the tiny Eatel telco in Ascension is almost finished laying fiber to every home and business in the parish, even to homes on stilts in the bayous.
  
  
• For job ads, visit the DSL Prime website.

Wall Street

• Blair Levin, Rebecca Arbogast, Christopher King, David Kaut & Nicole Salemme of Legg Mason are all moving today to Stifel Nicolaus, a side effect of the sale of Legg Mason to Citigroup. Best of luck to them all, and I'm glad I'll continue receiving their reports.
  
  
• Anton Wahlman's note November 28 broke the Cox 3 gigahertz story, the driver in needed upstream capacity, and the cell site opportunity. He also reported the negotiations between DirecTV and Verizon for DSL and EVDO backhaul (not final), and the possibility of AT&T taking the 2Wire box with satellite national in a year.

Copyright 2005 Dave Burstein.
The DSL Prime Newsletter is reprinted with permission.

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