Jetstream, Panasonic Eye Home
By Evan Blackwell
from the June 4, 2001 issue of Broadband Week
Voice over DSL hasn't yet taken off in the enterprise market, but equipment maker Jetstream Communications is betting that the consumer residential market is fertile. Jetstream takes its first major step into the consumer voice market with a new broadband telephone created jointly with consumer electronics giant Panasonic.
The companies were to announce their strategic alliance at SUPERCOMM and demonstrate the device, which is a multi-line cordless phone system that also serves as a high-speed Internet hub. "This is something we're really jazzed about," says Steve Gleave, Jetstream's vice president of marketing. "Panasonic claims to be the largest consumer electronics company in the world and they picked Jetstream to get into broadband telephony."
Because it's a consumer product to be sold initially by service providers, the Broadband Telephone was designed for customer self-installation with plug-and-play voice and data capabilities. The product includes an integrated ADSL modem and is also equipped to support such telephone network features as call waiting, caller ID and voice mail.
Gleave says Jetstream and Panasonic created the Broadband Telephone based on specifications of service providers. In fact, Gleave said some of those carriers had already been tinkering with the product, with major service providers possibly planning groundbreaking new VoDSL deployment announcements later this year.
AT&T, which recently acquired assets of bankrupt DSL provider NorthPoint Communications, is the type of provider Jetstream is targeting. AT&T spokesman Mark Siegel says AT&T would be making some announcements later this year about moving into consumer DSL via the NorthPoint infrastructure. Siegel says VoDSL will be part of the AT&T package. "We see DSL in a fundamentally different way than most of the rest of the world," Siegel says. "Everybody seems to associate DSL with high-speed access. While that's obviously very important, we see DSL as a platform for a variety of different services that includes telephony."
Pat Hurley, an analyst covering DSL and VoB space for Telechoice, says the first issue Jetstream and Panasonic would need to address going forward with the product will be pricing. "The pricing that would make a product like this successful in the consumer market is going to be significantly lower than what these kind of IADs have been going for right now," Hurley said. "You can't go out to a consumer and ask them to spend more than about $200-$300 for this kind of equipment. That's usually about the top end."
Jetstream wouldn't comment on specific pricing for the Broadband Telephone, but Gleave indicates it will need to come in well under the current $500 price tag for similar gear.
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