DSL Prime: Politics and Policy and Events

As news organizations try to simplify complex issues, they are missing some stories and misreporting others. Also, a list of industry events in the coming months.

by Dave Burstein of DSL Prime and Future of TV [June 23, 2008]

Policy

Don't believe the hype:

• Bell Canada cut capital spending 25 percent, then is claiming to the CRTC they have inadequate capacity and therefore must degrade their internet service. That's like pleading for mercy as an orphan when on trial for murdering your parents. The price increases are hurting deeply; DSL net adds were only 10,000, a remarkable drop unless competing with fiber. Providence Equity and the Ontario Teachers are buying a company that's not what it used to be. I hope they've budgeted enough to modernize Canada's network.
  
  
• Vuze's suggestion that AT&T is sending false bittorent resets is almost certainly untrue. AT&T has sworn otherwise, including CEO Ed Whitacre testifying before the U.S. Senate. Everything I know about their network suggests otherwise, and they sent me a 2004 academic paper that probably pinpoints the mistake Vuze made.
  
  
• Jim Cicconi of AT&T was misquoted saying "video would consume all the net's bandwidth in two years," although CNET and the BBC reported it that way from London. That's of course nonsense. No reputable technologist in the world believes anything close. Jim said "some analysts believe" but then followed with "Personally, I don't see that happening." He has elsewhere said that many people will want the net to run faster, which actually is the conclusion of the analysts I believe he is referring to. That's sensible. 1 Mbps up, 10 down is not enough for the HD TV era. I want more speed already and in both Japan and France people flocked to higher speeds when they were offered at similar prices. NTT & FT lost 7 million customers despite bringing their own price down. That's especially to the point in the UK, where BT and the government are trying to find a way to deliver fiber. BT is getting scared; Virgin is close to offering 50 Mbps across their half of the UK.

Events:

• Monday June 23 Washington Developing a National Broadband Strategy FCC Dems Copps and Adelstein will be joined by Michael Calabrese, one of the most articulate D.C. advocates, Jane Smith Patterson from North Carolina, a fighter, and the tireless Jim Baller. These folks share my pro-consumer bias. Ask them about the 100 megabit service BellSouth promised one and one half million homes, and how to make AT&T follow up. Free, including a modest lunch 12:15-1:45 p.m. Russell Senate Office Building Room 902 (so many people wanted to come they switched to a bigger room).
  
  
• Mercredi 25 juin, Paris: Xavier Niel doesn't speak in public that often, but will be on a panel with his peers form SFR and Neuf Cegetel. Dignitaries including Sarkozy are likely to make predictable speeches, but I don't think Xavier knows how to be boring.
  
  
• Friday June 27 FCC Consumer Advisory Committee, 9-4. Nobody at the FCC has ever given a satisfactory explanation of why Cablevision, EchoStar, and Verizon are on a consumer committee, but at least I see they've eliminated some of the astroturf carrier lobbyists. Do ask Eduardo Pena Jr. of LULAC how he explains to his members why LULAC supports the telcos against consumers.
  
  
• Friday, July 11 Columbia University The Focus on Locus: Symposium on Location Based Services . I know where that iPhone is. I know whether any of my friends are here at the airport. I know ... We've had years of hype about what you can do with cellphone location tracking, and now it's (finally) starting to work. The most important ICT trend coming in the West is that we will all be living in a totally connected wireless cloud. The first iPhone was the best small computer ever made, and none of the imitators yet come close. But over the next few years, Apple and others are going to produce something so useful we'll always carry it. LTE, WiMAX, or whatever, will blanket most of the country. Our connections with our friends and family will be constant. (The most significant ICT event since the Internet is the two billion mobile phones in China, India, Indonesia, and Africa. That really is changing the world.) 301 Uris Hall
  
  
• October 30 Columbia International Summit on Telecommunications and Media—25 years of CITI. Followed by State of Telecom 2008: A Trans-Atlantic Dialogue (with IDATE)—October 31, 2008 There's two darn good reasons every company in telecom should plan to send several people. There's going to be a extraordinary group of people to learn from, and it will be run by CITI, one of the top research institutes. "If I have seen far, it is because I stand on the shoulders of giants." The giants will be there

Infineon News
Peter Bauer, the new leader at Infineon, comes from the automotive side. Infinite unconfirmable rumors about spinoffs, Freescale or NXP. There also were rumors about changes in the communications division, in which they have recently invested several hundred million. The company quickly replied with the note below. Infineon's Comm Division is the #1 DSL CPE vendor, with offerings across ADSL and VDSL. They also have some good news in the iPhone and prospects for the many iPhone alternatives hitting the market. Apple alone is taking about five million chips a quarter. Semicast reports Infineon is now the largest supplier of semiconductors to the industrial sector in 2007. The DSL chip business is looking much more profitable now that TI and Centillium have sold their DSL divisions. The remaining 4 vendors Infineon, Broadcom, Conexant and Ikanos are not having to discount as much as before. From Infineon:

"Effective June 1st 2008, Peter Bauer has been appointed Spokesman of the Management Board of Infineon Technologies. Continuity and stability are high on his agenda, especially in customer relationships. This change in leadership will have no impact on any existing commitments. Business relationships will continue uninterruptedly.

Infineon's Communication Solutions business group is well on track: We have achieved many design wins with almost all major customers and deliver best in class solutions for the wireless and wired market.

For example ,Samsung recently announced that it uses our mature and best in class HSDPA solution for their current HEDGE (HSDPA+EDGE) mobile phone offerings. Analysts state, that they are impressed by the maturity of our 3G platform. They found that our solution compared favorably with the leaders (QCOM and EMP) on cost (with a similar number of external components), but beat them in terms of RF integration (one-chip solution vs. two-chip).

We continued to increase the integration level of our solutions. Currently, Infineon holds the industry record in this respect—from our single-chip GSM / GPRS ultra-low-cost phone solutions, through the first ever single-chip EDGE phone and up to the HSPA solution. Our proven success in 65 nm technology and 45 /40 nm roadmap ensure that our customers will continue to benefit from small footprint, cost-effective and highly efficient solutions well into the future.

For Broadband Access we are Number One in the CPE business and partner with all global telecommunication system providers and operators. The Infineon advanced xDSL, VoIP, TE carrier and voice access solutions beat at the heart of the world's most advanced broadband systems. On the user side, our customer premises equipment (CPE) devices provide all the necessary building blocks for advanced integrated access devices."

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

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