Broadband Week Direct - Daily News 9/1/00

Today's report from Web Editor Susan Rush

• FCC Paves Way For More Bandwidth
• SBC Makes DSL Turnkey Push
• DSL Zeros In On Video
• Cisco Buffs Up Services, Includes Video
• Broadband Briefs
• Next Week in Broadband

FCC Paves Way For More Bandwidth

Wireless home networks got a shot in the arm following a Federal Communications Commission ruling increasing the transmission speed of the Shared Wireless Access Protocol (SWAP) to 10 Mbps. The five-fold speed increase, which was first proposed by the Home Radio Frequency Working Group in September 1998, will enable home networking providers the capability to add support for audio and video streaming as well as expand voice services over wireless systems.

The news could help line equipment makers and service providers' pockets since home networking is expected to boom to $495 million by the end of 2000, according to Allied Business Intelligence. ABI predicts home networking will produce $2.4 billion in revenue worldwide by 2005. Analysts say phone line solutions accounted for most of the home networking units shipped around the United States last year, but wireless solutions are expected to become more popular as consumers catch on and data rates increase.

The HomeRF WG and its member companies, including Intel, Proxim and Siemens, will now be able to deliver data speeds to its residential wireless customers that have only been enjoyed by the corporate sector to date.

According to industry analysts, the ruling is in line with the way the home networking industry is moving. "Higher speeds, coupled with the inherent voice channel support of the Home RF solution, gives service providers the ability to deliver integrated next-generation services to the end consumer, which will be crucial in the hyper-competitive broadband services market," says Mike Wolf, director of enterprise and residential services at research firm Cahners In-Stat, a sister company to Broadband Week.

SBC Makes DSL Turnkey Push

Just in time for the back to school rush and the pre-holiday season, SBC Communications is showing how it wants to deliver turnkey DSL service to the masses.

SBC, which has been ramping up its DSL service in all its markets, is looking to attract customers with a bundled approach that service providers have long said is crucial for mass-market acceptance of broadband services. In conjunction with Compaq, SBC is offering a free DSL-ready Compaq Presario computer and its DSL service for $59.95 a month. Customers in the Southwestern Bell, Pacific Bell and Ameritech regions who commit to a 28-month service contract get the computer and up to three months of free service.

The promotion is an extension of SBC commitment to its "Project Pronto," a plan launched last year to accelerate DSL deployment. SBC's goal is to have DSL service available to 80 percent of its customers by the end of 2002.

DSL Zeros In On Video

The DSL video market is on pace to see triple-digit annual growth rates through 2003, according to a new report released by Cahners In-Stat, sister company to Broadband Week. As competition heats up in the high-speed Internet connection arena, telcos will be looking to video to provide them with a competitive edge, which in turn will increase demand for video gateways.

The report predicts that video gateway developers will be eager to capture market share and will be willing to customize a gateway for customers. Set top features coming down the pike include home networking connectivity, Web browsing on television sets, video on demand, videoconferencing and personal video recording.

The Video Gateways: Emerging Telecom Set Top Boxes report examines the features of video gateway products and provides a five-year forecast for unit shipments, ASPs, gateway revenues and bill of materials.

Cisco Buffs Up Services, Includes Video

In a move to accelerate its delivery of video over broadband networks, Cisco Systems will acquire PixStream. The company brings PixStream, a provider of hardware and software solutions to deliver and manage digital video services over high-speed networks, into the fold to leverage itself as a single end-to-end source for video, voice and data services. The deal also enables Cisco customers to offer Internet or IP-based entertainment services such as video-on-demand, multi-player games and broadcast quality TV.

Under the terms of the agreement, Cisco will exchange $369 million worth of its common stock for all outstanding shares and options of PixStream. The transaction is expected to be complete in the first quarter of Cisco's fiscal year 2001.

Broadband Briefs:

Kb/Tel tabs Green Hills Software to develop embedded software for its Kb/E1 broadband wireless network. The software, which will run on a Motorola MPC860 processor, will provide protocol and modem control, as well as internal management for the network
360networks opens new fiber-optic network monitoring center in Denver, Colorado. The 95,000-square foot facility will serve as the heart of the company's 77,900-mile global network.
Canada's cable giant Rogers Communications is expected to announce its purchase of a majority stake in the Toronto Blue Jays baseball team. The deal is reportedly worth $110 million.
Telecom Italia and three Latin American telecommunications companies form Latin American Nautilus. The new company will concentrate its efforts on building a broadband network aimed at servicing at least 20 percent of the region's market.
DataVON records an increase in traffic over its VoIP network in July and August. The VoIP telephone and data service provider sold 9 million minutes in July and an additional 7.5 million minutes in August, bringing the company's total to 156.5 million minutes.
America Online acquires voice portal firm Quack.com to help make some of its content accessible to users over the phone. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. In the past six months, AOL has invested more than $65 million in voice recognition firms.

Next Week in Broadband

Regulatory:

Sept. 7: Commissioner Harold Furchtgott-Roth will deliver a keynote address to the 66th Annual Convention, Tennessee Telecommunications Association, Sheraton-Music City, Nashville, TN, 9:15 a.m.

Sept. 8: Deborah Lathen, Chief, Cable Services Bureau (CSB) will participate on the Schwab Washington Research Group Panel, "Federal Regulatory Issues," the Four Seasons Hotel, Washington, DC, 9:45 am.

Conferences:

Sept. 5-6: Mobile Entertainment. Hotel Nikko de Paris, Paris, France; www.ibctelecoms.com/mobents00

Upcoming Events:

Sept. 12-14: CLECexpo Fall 2000. Adams Mark Hotel, Denver, CO; www.clecexpo.com

Sept.12-14: ICe San Jose 2000. San Jose Convention Center, San Jose, Calif.; www.iceexpo.com