Phone Line Internet

Inter@ctive WeekOctober 10, 1997

                      Nortel Unveils 1-Megabit Phone Line
                      Ethernet

                      By Peter Lambert 
                      1:00 PM EDT 

                      Northern Telecom Inc. announced the Nortel 1-Meg
Modem, a
                      modem designed to extend Ethernet-equipped
personal computer
                      access across standard telephone lines. 

                      The company plans to deliver plug-in modules for
its DMS phone
                      company central office switches and its Internet
Thruway voice switch
                      bypass device in the first half of 1998. It will
license the 1-Meg
                      Modem technology to modem makers. 

                      The 1-Meg will deliver 1-megabit-per-second speeds
downstream
                      into homes or businesses and
120-kilobit-per-second speeds in the
                      other direction, and like Ethernet-connected local
area network
                      (LAN) interfaces, the modem will always be on,
requiring no dial-up
                      connection. 

                      The technology will offer compatibility with both
frame relay and
                      Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) backbone
networks. 

                      Separately, Nortel finalized a deal to gain an
unspecified equity interest
                      in NetSpeed Inc. and rights to integrate
NetSpeed's Digital Subscriber
                      Line technology into its own products. NetSpeed's
ATM-based
                      LoopRunner Digital Subscriber Line Access
Multiplexer is designed to
                      terminate up to 560 users per central office
system rack. 

                      Nortel can be found at www.nortel.com 

                      NetSpeed can be found at www.netspeed.com 

                           Email Peter Lambert

Anonymous wrote:

> Inter@ctive WeekOctober 10, 1997
>
>                       Nortel Unveils 1-Megabit Phone Line
>                       Ethernet
>
>

etc etc...

>                       The 1-Meg will deliver 1-megabit-per-second speeds
> downstream
>                       into homes or businesses and
> 120-kilobit-per-second speeds in the
>                       other direction

This is too slow upstream for future technology needs.  I'll admit that the

upstream is almost as fast as a 2B+D ISDN setup, but research that I've
done suggest that 384kb is necessary for VHS quality realtime video.

So Nortel will deliver enough downstream bandwith for you to be a video
consumer, but not a provider.  How typical.

I'll wait for xDSL, thank you.

Jim Burnes


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