CED articles from May 2000

CED archives from May 2000

High flying ideas.(Brief Article)
May 1, 2000... The funny thing about being so closely associated with a growth industry (like the "broadband" industry has become) is that when it gets hot--really hot--companies come out of the woodwork with new ideas they sometimes laughingly call...

AT&T takes reins at Excite@Home.(Brief Article)
May 1, 2000... Let there be no doubt that Excite@Home will remain a large Internet player for the foreseeable future. In a move that alters the governance of one of the largest high-speed Internet companies in the world, AT&T Corp. said it has extended...

Interactive TV deals heat up.(Brief Article)
May 1, 2000... The interactive television (ITV) arena caught fire again as two large players went deep into their pockets to snap up two up-and-comers. First, OpenTV Corp. agreed to acquire Spyglass Inc. for roughly $2.53 billion in stock, which adds to its...

Road Runner upgrades to "Business Class".(Brief Article)
May 1, 2000... Giving its cable affiliates a new card to play with their commercial customers, Road Runner has unveiled "Road Runner Business Class," a suite of e-business services headed by Mark Mercer, the former senior manager for Ernst & Young LLP....

A new DOCSIS 1.1 team emerges.(Brief Article)
May 1, 2000... IP solutions developer TollBridge Technologies Inc. and Broadcom Corp. will jointly develop and market carrier-class voice-over-cable services using the DOCSIS 1.1 specification. Broadcom and TollBridge's collaboration also will include...

CableLabs certifies first plug-and-play modems.
May 1, 2000... Cable Television Laboratories Inc. (CableLabs) awarded the coveted DOCSIS seal to 10 more cable modem models during Certification Wave 12, marking the largest number of products ever certified in a single wave. Those products now have the green...

S-A launches turnkey broadband network unit.(Brief Article)
May 1, 2000... Scientific-Atlanta (S-A) has Launched SciCare Broadband Services, a new business group that will tap its own resources, processes and knowledge to help cable operators expedite the delivery of advanced services. In its first deal, SciCare...

AT&T casts a big vote for Net2Phone.(Brief Article)
May 1, 2000... An AT&T-led consortium will acquire a 39 percent voting stake and a 32 percent economic stake in Net2Phone, giving the Internet telephony provider a huge confidence boost. Net2Phone's technology enables PC users with Internet connections...

SCTE sets new record.(Brief Article)
May 1, 2000... Buoyed by the convergence of the broadband industry, The Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers (SCTE) says its ranks have reached 16,850 members, a new record. SCTE added approximately 2,700 new members over an 18-month period, and...

Terayon pegs Ultracom for DSL and wireless.
May 1, 2000... Broadband agnostic Terayon Communications Systems Inc. has reached a deal to buy privately-held Ultracom Communications Holdings Ltd., a "systems-on-silicon" provider for the wireless and digital, subscriber line (DSL) arenas, in a stock deal...

Matrimony for Power TV and Prasara.(Brief Article)
May 1, 2000... Interactive television (ITV) prayers PowerTV Inc. and Prasara Technologies say they will merge to create an open solution for ITV that's capable of running on any broadband delivery network, server solution and cable digital set-top. ...

PanAmSat unveils Internet "Drano".(Brief Article)
May 1, 2000... Hoping to unclog a "slow, congested terrestrial Internet network," satellite giant PanAmSat Corp. has unveiled plans for NET/36, a global high-speed, high-bandwidth network capable of broadcasting IP video, audio and data simultaneously to...

Bridging the "Digital Divide".
May 1, 2000... Calling it the first program of its kind in the country, WorldGate Communications Inc. and Charter Communications Inc. are offering free Internet access using WorldGate's Internet on EVERY TV service to folks in LaGrange, Ga., a city of 27,000...

Philips unit to set standards.(Brief Article)
May 1, 2000... Royal Philips Electronics has Launched TriMedia Technologies, an independent company whose goal is to create industry standards for a number of advanced consumer products such as digital television sets, time-shift video recorders, set-top...

New SCTE board members.
May 1, 2000... The votes have been cast and tallied. The Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers (SCTE) recently announced the results of its 2000 board of directors erection for the 2000-2002 term. Ron Hranac, who recently joined Cisco Systems...

Lucent eyes hi-def IP video.(Brief Article)
May 1, 2000... Lucent Technologies Inc. and a host of partners will launch GeoVideo Networks, a venture that will harness an international Internet Protocol (IP) network capable of sending and receiving HDTV-quality, real-time video. GeoVideo plans to...

MediaOne does digital ads in LA.(Brief Article)
May 1, 2000... MediaOne Group and Adlink have hired nCUBE and Terayon Communications Systems to install digital-into-digital ad insertion equipment in the MSO's 12 Los Angeles systems. Marking the first of its kind in the United States, the service took...

VOD hits hotels.(Brief Article)
May 1, 2000... Time Warner Cable of Myrtle Beach, S.C. has launched video-on-demand (VOD) movies, high-speed Internet access and gaming services to four hotels representing more than 1,500 guest rooms following the installation of SeaChange International...

OpenCable CE specs released.(Brief Article)
May 1, 2000... Cable Television Laboratories Inc. (CableLabs) has released a final revision of its OpenCable Network Interface specification (OCI-N), providing manufacturers with direction on how to build digital television receivers that will interoperate...

CTAM unearths digital set-top advantages.(Brief Article)
May 1, 2000... Features (% rating 4 or 5)(*) Type of cable TV customer Total Premium PPV Digital VCR control that allows 54 62 67 71 you to record a program by...

LETTERS.(Letter to the Editor)
May 1, 2000... Directing traffic To Jeff Krauss: In your article "Open Access Road Show" in the April 2000 issue (p. 134), you state, "Today, there is no way to force a packet to be routed through a particular site. IP routing does not have that...

Stepping outside the comfort zone.(Brief Article)
May 1, 2000... Cable operators look to alternative technologies to provide total coverage In the end, it all comes down to serving the customer. Remember the old axiom: "Customers don't care how they get their HBO--they just know they want it"? Facing up...

Scanning the high-speed heavens.
May 1, 2000... Next to DSL, the emerging fleet of satellite-based data providers are considered one of cable's most daunting foes. In some cases, though, they can be cable's buddy too. Shoot, Luke! The sky's full of satellites! As most cable operators...

xDSL marks the spot?
May 1, 2000... After a shaky start, DSL services are on the move, possibly into a cable headend near you For those of the twisted-pair persuasion, transport of digital content (be it voice, video or data) has never been easy. In fact, when ADSL first...

High on wireless.
May 1, 2000... Cable operators and competitors alike just say "yes" to wireless, as they take to the air to reach more customers Data (and yes, the money that goes with it) changes everything. The latest case-in-point is broadband wireless technology....

GREY MATTER.
May 1, 2000... The broadband network intelligence debate continues to brew Oh, if I only had a brain. That jovial refrain, as we all remember, comes from the Scarecrow in the film adaptation of L. Frank Baum's wonderful children's yarn, "The Wonderful...

ELBOWING THEIR WAY IN.(Brief Article)
May 1, 2000... And to think some people have been complaining that the Telecommunications Act of 1996 was a bust. That piece of legislation, which effectively deregulated the telecommunications industry to spur competition in the local loop, has indeed...

Knology: Adding a personal touch.
May 1, 2000... After a team of two and $600,000 helped Knology get off the ground in 1994, the company has quickly grown to hold eight franchises, roughly 306,000 marketable homes passed, and has installed more than 138,713 "connections" that support either...

RCN: It is our density.
May 1, 2000... Offering a tasty package of video, voice and data, RCN, a publicly-traded affiliate of Boston Edison, has quickly become one of the most aggressive and successful overbuilders that incumbent cable and telephone companies have to contend with....

Seren's star rising in the West.
May 1, 2000... Seren Innovations, a Minnesota-based overbuilder, is taking its newbuild, bundled services strategy to California as it expands its territory to include San Francisco's East Bay market. Seren, a Welsh word for "star," is a wholly-owned...

OnePoint: David takes on Goliath.
May 1, 2000... Chicago-based OnePoint Communications bills itself as a telecommunications "David," fighting the "Goliaths" of the telecom world in a quest to offer consumers lower prices, better service and a bundle of voice, data and video services. ...

WOW: Open spaces, open networks.
May 1, 2000... WideOpenWest... The name conjures up images of sprawling yellow prairies under azure blue skies, pioneers heading West in wagon trains, gunslingers challenging those in their way. While those metaphors for expansion, opportunity and challenge...

McLeod bides time honing design.
May 1, 2000... Nestled among the rolling hills of east central Iowa is the high-tech headquarters of McLeodUSA (pronounced "McCloud"). Two huge, silver-sided office buildings, housing approximately a quarter of the company's 8,100 employees, overlook a small...

Will the other SBC shoe drop?
May 1, 2000... Come May 8, it will be seven months since SBC Communications Inc. finalized its acquisition of Ameritech and its cable TV subsidiary, Ameritech New Media Inc. Contrary to some predictions, the streets of the Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland and...

Crafting HFC architectures for two-way access.
May 1, 2000... Techniques for mining the network The hybrid fiber/coax network is the physical medium over which cable television companies distribute their product. Originally, this network was entirely coaxial cable, and the content was entirely analog...

Who's got their hands on your network?
May 1, 2000... Cable TV ISPs evaluate, combat hacker threat Every shining success is shadowed by risks, and nowhere is that truer than in the world of Internet access. In this area, the risks come from hackers. Trouble is, "the risks go up as things like...

Broadcasters struggle over DTV standards.
May 1, 2000... So far, move to digital is far from graceful As digital television (DTV) makes it way into cable subscribers' homes, the network broadcasting side of the digital equation is facing a series of tough questions about technical standards,...

OPEN CABLE ARCHITECTURE.
May 1, 2000... In years past, books that adequately and accurately explained the technical aspects of the cable television industry were virtually nonexistent, outside of William Grant's old standby, Cable Television. Since then, of course, the industry...

Web-based media hits fast track.
May 1, 2000... Will cable's multi-megabit play spoil consumers for anything else? The pursuit of market opportunities for interactive Web-based entertainment media has moved onto two fast tracks, one devoted to exploiting minimal access speeds to deliver...

Worldwide appetite for fiber is voracious.
May 1, 2000... Companies may find less fiber in their diets, as demand outstrips supply The enormous appetite for optical fiber is reaching prodigious proportions as communications companies of all flavors gobble up every last available strand in their...

Time is money, part 1.
May 1, 2000... As I write this, spring has sprung and daylight-saving time is upon us. I've always had this love-hate relationship with daylight-saving time. I love the fact that I have an additional hour of daylight at the end of the day, so I can get to...

BUSINESS BRIEFS.
May 1, 2000... Cox opens doors on first retail showroom ATLANTA--Cox Communications Inc. recently held the grand opening of its first retail showroom, located in the company's New Orleans service area. During the celebration, the company sold 350 new...

newproducts.
May 1, 2000... 980 nm pump lasers MINNEAPOLIS--ADC has announced the availability of its 980 nm pump laser diode and module, its first active optical component line. The company designs and manufactures both the 980 nm diode chip and module. Its 980 nm...

business people.
May 1, 2000... Janice Aune has been promoted to president of US West !NTERPRISE Networking. Most recently, Aune was head of operations, technical engineering and systems, at !NTERPRISE, where she led more than 1,200 employees in the data and Internet provider...

Crash and burn.
May 1, 2000... Later this year, Iridium's satellites will be "de-orbited," and they will burn up as they fall. This column explains what went wrong, and the implications. Mobile satellite service Iridium was designed to offer "mobile satellite...

Convergence: Opportunities Challenges Solutions.
May 1, 2000... CONVERGENCE is the mantra of the communications revolution: convergence of content and delivery, convergence of traditional voice and data, and convergence of fixed and mobile telephony. Cable operators have made significant advancements in...