DSL Prime News Briefs

Ivan's back, big news from China, and much more in this quick tour around the DSL world.

by Dave Burstein of DSL Prime and Future of TV [February 28, 2008]

Correction

• In an article I wrote a year ago, I have an apparent error about an AT&T lobbyist. "Jim Cicconi ... is a major Republican operative who played a key role raising $50 million or more for the most partisan Republican causes." Jim told me in January that was misleading, and that he had always been a "policy guy." I have no reason to doubt his role as "wonk" rather than "rainmaker". The original article was inspired by his leadership in Progress for America. "PFA is a 527 group that was formed to raise tens of millions of dollars for the Republican party, that has also produced TV ads in support of GOP candidates and ads against Democratic candidates, as shown during the 2004 election when they attacked John Kerry and John Edwards, and in 2005 when they released television commercials supporting President Bush's Social Security Privatization plan." He also is Vice President of the library for George Bush the First. The biggest favor a reader can do is point out any errors.

Quotes

• "The ability to deliver innovative new projects that excites customers is the life-blood of our industry."
  —Dan Artusi, Conexant

Briefs

• Ikanos' new chips are an important move forward for VDSL. I'll have more next issue.
  
  
• "Broadbandit" in the headline is a term from Om Malik. Very good to see he's writing regularly now and recovering from a medical problem.
  
  
• Some very big news due from China. The rumors are that China Unicom's 170 million subscribers will be split between China Telecom and China Netcom, which currently are losing two million land lines a month. The result would be three nationwide wireless operators among the largest in the world. Chinawire believes they will then invest about $10 billion in jumping straight to 4G networks. All unconfirmed. Meanwhile, China's DSL growth continues to lead the world.

Press

• Broadcasting & Cable + Multichannel News is for sale by Reed Publishing. These are two of the primary sources in cable. In 1999, I was fascinated by broadband and decided to start this newsletter.I focused on DSL because magazines like these covered cable well and no one was covering DSL. The style of DSL Prime–informal, calling out leaders by name, allowing industry jargon–is based on Variety, Hollywood's favorite, which is also for sale.
  
  
• Ted Hearn at Multichannel has been doing so much interesting reporting about D.C. policy I've added the Multichannel News Policy feed to my Bloglines. He's not afraid to attack Kevin Martin, writing the Chairman "isn't afraid of playing by north Jersey mob rules when shown up in public." I admire his spirit on that, but I disagree with his judgment. Most of Martin's moves in cable have been good for consumers.

Wall Street

• "Crisis grips European hedge funds" writes Louise Armitstead in the London Times. "A raft of European hedge funds have been forced to introduce emergency measures to protect their businesses from collapsing in the wake of the turmoil in financial markets." Hedge fund performance is overall a sham. Hedge fund managers quickly have become very, very rich, but very, very few will have long term results that support a fee of two and twenty. There are two important exceptions: high risk and inside information. Inside information is one of the key currencies on the street, part of any analyst's daily concern. The downside of risk has been brought home with hundreds of billions wall street has lost lately.
  
  
• Leila Abboud in the WSJ wonders if now is a "buying opportunity" at Alcatel. The "company issued three straight profit warnings last year, and its stock slid 60 percent, wiping off more than $20 billion from its market value, now about $14.6 billion." Martin Warwick provided reasons to hesitate, noting the company's losses "are exceptional each and every time, and that CFO Hubert de Pesquidoux "refused to give details of the exact sums involved" in the CDMA writedown. Alcatel was right to devalue future earnings from CDMA, which will be phased out for LTE. (via Commsday)

People

• Ivan's back! He spoke at the Merrill Lynch conference this week. Seidenberg has been keeping a very low profile since the union and the New York Times made him the poster boy for ridiculous CEO salaries. I've missed him; his comments on industry issues are usually thoughtful and interesting.
  
  
• Alan Lefkof, once CEO of Netopia, is now corporate vice president, Motorola Broadband Solutions Group, where he's launching the new DOCSIS 3.0 modems. I was surprised, because few CEOs stay with the acquiring company for long. His old competitor, Mark Floyd of Efficient, went on to senior jobs at Siemens after the acquisition. Then he left for Entrisphere and sold that to Ericsson after winning the AT&T fiber home business against Alcatel.
  
  
• Jayant Kadamdi, once the chief researcher at Netopia, founded YuMe Networks and is doing well in the Internet advertising business. His key financial supporter is Vinod Khosla.
• Sir Howard Stringer of Sony is apparently afraid of answering questions, refusing to take any at his own CES "press conference." That's one reason to follow Wall Street events. Push aside the street and they are liable to decide you have something to hide. So it's much harder to lie or duck questions.

Copyright 2008 Dave Burstein.
The DSL Prime Newsletter is reprinted with permission.

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