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Monday, July 15, 2002 |
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• New Efficient ADSL CPE to use TI chips • Interactive gaming reduces churn? • Digeo goes two-for-two with S-A deal • SBC adds Alcatel deep
fiber solution • Sprint's Global Markets Group exits data biz, cuts staff • AT&T Broadband launches EarthLink in Seattle Just days after inking a video-on-demand content deal with Charter Communications Inc., TVN Entertainment has closed a deal to support Comcast Cable Communications Inc.'s VOD rollout in Philadelphia. The full-scale deployment, which is slated to launch this fall, calls for TVN to support 750 hours of monthly VOD programming in the Philadelphia market. TVN already supports 15 Comcast VOD rollouts. The pending merger of Comcast and AT&T Broadband could lead to more VOD contracts for TVN. Last week, Charter tabbed TVN as its VOD content delivery partner. Under that deal, TVN will encode on-demand content for the MSO from its Digital Network Operations Center and transport VOD titles and subscription-VOD content via TVN’s Secure Satellite Transmission (SST) system. In the wake of Diva Systems' demise, VOD companies like TVN have been seizing customers. As expected, Diva filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection from its creditors at the end of May. Comcast meanwhile, has been working to beef up its service offering in Philadelphia. The company recently announced plans to deliver voice-over IP services in its hometown. Comcast said it will use a voice-over-IP system powered by Arris Group Inc.'s C4 cable modem termination system (CMTS) unit which is Data Over Cable Service Interface Specifications 1.1 qualified. In other VOD news, Eagle Broadband has signed a deal with Warner Home Video to access Warner Home Video's first-run feature movies, library content and live events for VOD distribution over Eagle's IP-based fiber network. Terms were not disclosed. Related stories:
New Efficient ADSL CPE to use TI chips Efficient Networks, makers of DSL bridge and router gear, announced a deal to use silicon technology from chipmaker Texas Instruments in a majority of the company's next-generation ADSL gear. Efficient will be developing ADSL products using TI's AR5 chipsets, which will include a future product family of bridges, routers and residential gateways. Company sources said that the deal will bring TI chipset technology to about 90 percent of Efficient's future ADSL development. The AR5 chipsets from TI use digital signal processing (DSP) in the physical layer and provide a firmware platform for development as well. Also, because the AR5 has an open software architecture, Efficient developers can add on higher-layer networking and applications software-like customer self-install capabilities, VPN, or firewall technology-in their future ADSL product development. Another consideration for Efficient in choosing TI is the potential for advanced interoperability testing, as TI has become a leader in testing physical layer performance and translating that into operator relationships. "That was a very important piece for Efficient when they were looking for a majority supplier," said Nancy Fares, CPE Business Manager for Ti's DSL unit. -Duffy Hayes Related stories:
Interactive gaming reduces churn? Cable operator Blue Ridge Communications has teamed with Pioneer Digital Technologies Inc. to launch an interactive gaming service to complement its digital cable program offering. Interactive deployments will help spur growth and reduce digital churn, according to Blue Ridge. As part of the deal, Pioneer's interactive game application, dubbed PassTime Games, will be be offered to Blue Ridge's 7,500 digital-tier subscribers in Pennsylvania as an added value to their existing cable service. The games, which are fully integrated level-two applications, enable subscribers to watch their cable channels while playing. The single-user games feature easy to navigate, pause, return and picture-in-picture options. The PassTime Games application was developed for the Passport 3.0 platform, and features animated graphics for Klondike Solitaire, 21 or Bust and Poker Solitaire. "PassTime Games is a prime example of how an application can fully use a digital infrastructure by offering compelling interactive entertainment alongside seamless access to cable programming and interactive services such as movies on-demand and subscription video-on-demand," said Haig Krakirian, vice president, software engineering at Pioneer Digital Technologies. Related stories:
Digeo goes two-for-two with S-A deal Digeo Inc., a division of Paul Allen's Vulcan Ventures, has struck a deal with Scientific-Atlanta Inc. to create a home media center that operates Digeo's Moxi platform. Corporate cousin Charter Communications will be the first to deploy the Moxi-powered Explorer MC when it becomes commercially available in 2003. With S-A in the fold, Digeo now has agreements in place
with the two largest manufacturers of digital cable set-tops in
the U.S. Digeo, through a similar partnership with Charter and Motorola
Broadband, Charter is expected to deploy the BMC 8000 later this year, and follow with the BMC 9000 sometime in 2003. The BMC 8000 is compatible with 2000-class boxes from both Motorola and Scientific-Atlanta because it feeds off the conditional access technology already inherent in the host set-top. Digeo CEO Jim Billmaier said he expects the Motorola BMC 9000 to go into deployment with Charter by mid-2003, and the S-A version to be ready for prime time by the second half of next year. Perhaps more importantly, both deals erase the conditional access and encryption requirement for Digeo, which won't have to cut separate licensing agreements to get its hardware reference designs and interactive software platform to work on the majority of domestic cable networks. Motorola and S-A own the two major cable conditional access/encryption platforms used in the US To date., Pace Micro Technology is the lone set-top provider to secure a license for Motorola's Digicipher II platform. Pace, Pioneer, Panasonic and Toshiba, meanwhile, have licenses for S-A's PowerKey. Equipped with two tuners, the base Explorer MC will sport an 80-gigabyte hard drive for applications such as personal video recording, digital music and photography and games. Those capabilities can be shared with a second television via a smaller, less expensive extension module. That combination is designed to drive down the cost-per box. Although specific costs and pricing hasn't been disclosed, Motorola Broadband has estimated that a cable operator could expect to pay between $300 and $400 per television for a two-to-three-TV set-up that employs advanced media centers and less costly baby clients. The Explorer MC will mark the first Explorer box to come off the line sans an operating system and middleware platform from S-A subsidiary PowerTV Inc. Instead, like the Motorola media center products, the first iteration of the Explorer MC will come equipped with an underlying Linux-based software system. S-A Director of Strategic Marketing Dave Davies said he believes the deal with Digeo won't hamper the marketability of the Explorer 8000, a digital box that touts dual tuners and an imbedded hard drive for DVR applications. So far, Time Warner Cable and Cox Communications are the only MSOs to announce commitments for the Explorer 8000. Davies added that the Explorer 8000 is the only box of its kind available today to US cable operators. Charter is the only MSO to openly support Digeo's media center concept, although it's expected that other operators could join the party eventually, but only after Charter, Digeo and the box vendors prove out the economics. Digeo, Charter and S-A aren't strangers to each other
when it comes to -Jeff Baumgartner Related stories:
SBC adds Alcatel deep fiber solution One of the questions telco industry watchers have been asking is, how deep will the fiber run in LEC networks? As telcos build out their DSL infrastructure, companies like Alcatel are increasingly pushing deep fiber solutions --like the newer 7340 Fiber-to-the-User (FTTU) solution --to operators as way to offer a ton of bandwidth to throughput-hungry residential users, especially in newbuild or greenfield applications. SBC Communications is one telco signed on to the Alcatel FTTU platform, the companies announced, and they'll be adding the 7340 passive optical networking platform to SBC Pacific Bell's Mission Bay project in San Francisco. The 7340 system includes OLT devices for the central office, ONT devices that sit at the customers' premises, as well as an overall management system. On a broadband passive optical network (BPON) like the 7340, voice traffic is carried as VoATM packet data, and data is carried over traditional Ethernet infrastructure. Alcatel's 7340 platform conforms to new BPON standards called G.983, which were essentially drafted by LECs and PTTs like SBC and others. To this point, deep fiber projects have been small, or spotty, yet the new Mission Bay project is larger in scale and based on these new standards. The Alcatel platform is the first product that is standards-based and available for the residential market, according to Mark Klimek, a senior director of marketing for Alcatel's FTTU program. "It's a really big deal because you have one of the premier operators in the world deploying gear from the world leader in broadband access ... that's a pretty significant statement, in a marketplace that has seen several fiber-to-the-home programs come and go over the years," said Klimek. Many of those FTTU projects were doomed because of the extensive costs associated with running fiber so deep in the network to customers. The new Alcatel solution still carries a fairly high price tag; Klimek estimated initial deployment costs of $1,100 to $1,400 per subscriber. Aside from the SBC announcement, Klimek also hinted at some potential deals for the FTTU solution by the overbuilder community, but details of those agreements are still being finalized. -Duffy Hayes Related stories:
Sprint's Global Markets Group exits
data biz, Sprint Corp. continued its march toward a leaner company on Friday, announcing plans to streamline its Global Markets Group, including shedding jobs, integrating its data hosting business to other areas of the company and dumping DSL. The Global Markets Group, which includes Sprint's long-distance business, will exit the DSL game in cities where it has found a better way to deliver service or where the high access and infrastructure costs make it difficult to continue service. Sprint has stressed that its business division will continue to offer its Sprint FastConnect DSL service. The company also will integrate its E/Solutions' Web hosting sales, mobile-computing consulting, marketing, product and sales support functions into its Network Services unit. As part of its restructuring plan, the company plans to erase 1,200 jobs from various areas of the group over the next several weeks. Of the 1,200 cuts, only 1,100 employees will be affected because the other 100 positions are vacant. The job cuts follow a string up staff reductions carried out throughout Sprint over the past several months, including 7,500 cuts in October and 3,000 cuts in February. "We are making significant steps that will enhance our focus on meeting financial commitments and position us to meet marketplace demands for 2003 and beyond," Sprint's Global Markets Group President Len Lauer said in a statement. In June, Sprint's credit rating was cut to a notch above "junk" status by Moody's Investors Service. Related stories:
AT&T Broadband launches EarthLink in Seattle Moving forward on a deal signed in March, AT&T Broadband said today it is offering EarthLink services over its high-speed network in Seattle, Wash. EarthLink also participated in AT&T Broadband’s $20 million, 320-subscriber ISP Choice technical trial in Boulder, which concluded last year. AT&T Broadband initially tested the ISP with EarthLink employees in Seattle, where EarthLink operates a call center. With the launch, EarthLink will begin marketing its high-speed cable service via direct mail and then follow with radio, print and Internet advertising, said Staci Parker, EarthLink’s vice president of cable sales. She added that EarthLink will also send e-mails to existing dial-up subscribers in the area in an attempt to upgrade them to the faster cable service. EarthLink will charge its Seattle cable modem customers a monthly fee of $41.95 (plus a $3 monthly charge for a modem rental to AT&T Broadband) for a package that includes speeds up to 1.5 megabits per second downstream and 256 Kbps upstream, plus up to eight e-mail addresses and personal Web sites, firewall protection, and up to 20 hours of dial-up access for customers who have to access their accounts from the road. EarthLink is the only unaffiliated ISP AT&T Broadband presently is offering in Seattle, although the MSO has plans in place to eventually offer additional national and regional providers. For example, AT&T Broadband also has cut a deal with regional provider Internet Central, but the MSO and the ISP have yet to complete their interconnection. AT&T Broadband could begin offering access to Internet Central in the Seattle area by the end of this year, company spokeswoman Sarah Eder said. EarthLink and New England-based ISP Net1Plus are expected to be among the ISPs to participate in AT&T Broadband’s upcoming ISP Choice launch in the Boston, Mass. area. No stranger to cable networks, EarthLink also is available in all 39 Time Warner Cable divisions and has participated in multiple ISP trials conducted by Comcast Corp. and Cox Communications. The launch could appease regulators that are considering whether to allow the pending merger between Comcast and AT&T Broadband. In April, Comcast President Brian Roberts told a Senate subcommittee that the MSO wouldn’t, as part of its merger with AT&T Broadband, agree to an open access condition similar to what the Federal Trade Commission imposed on the AOL Time Warner merger. -Jeff Baumgartner
• SureWest completes WINfirst asset acquisition WINfirst filed for bankruptcy protection from its creditors in March. SureWest made an offer for its assets on June 19. • Net to Net snags financing • AT&T Latin America expands HP partnership The companies already have similar agreements in Peru and Brazil. AT&T Latin America has more than 900 connected buildings and 1,500 Internet and data customers in Chile.
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