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Jim Barthold
What a difference a venue makes. A month ago, at the Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers (SCTE) Cable Tec Expo in Orlando, the show buzz surrounded using switched circuits to get cable telephony off the ground.
Last week, when the industry gathered in Chicago, those details were swamped in a blaze of Internet Protocol (IP) telephony; Lucent Technologies Inc.'s partnership with Motorola Inc. serving as the bellwether.
"We've been working at packet-based solutions for a number of years and we believe that by bringing in actual telephony capability as opposed to just plain old voice over IP that we can accelerate the marketplace," said John Slevin, Lucent's business development director.
The Motorola partnership, he said, will push telephony into IP without abandoning switches.
On the other hand, Lucent is chasing a non-traditional customer base.
"We don't want to offend anyone. What we want to do is provide solutions that the consumers want and the consumers are asking for solutions that either work over the wired network, over the cable network or over the wireless network," he continued. "What we're trying to do is ensure that we have the variety of portfolio solutions that can be in all of them."
Lucent "for the first time is actually bringing the power of real telephony to the cable industry," he concluded.
Trials begin in July with general product availability in the first to second quarter of 2000, said Lucent EVP Pat Russo.
Arris Interactive, a Nortel Networks/Antec Corp. joint venture, disputed that timetable while announcing its own migratory path.
"I don't know what Lucent's doing and I can't comment on what Lucent's doing," said Jim Lakin, Arris' chief marketing officer. "We've been partners with Nortel for four years. They're just now getting around to partnering with somebody who has local loop and they expect to have products in the market that are deployable in the first quarter of 2000. I wish them luck."
Arris' timetable is unchanged, Lakin said.
"We're not changing time frames," he insisted. "We were always talking about alpha (trials) at the end of '99. We were always talking about a beta (test) second quarter of 2000 and going to deployment in the third quarter and beyond in 2000. It's the same thing we've always had.
"What we're talking about is real," Lakin insisted.
Reality begins when CableLabs certifies DOCSIS 1.1 modems, he admitted.
"It (standardization) drives the chips; the chips drive the devices; the devices drive the whole cost equation. If that is delayed, then we just continue to ship the CBR (constant bit rate/switched circuit) stuff because it's proven it is making money for the operators today," Lakin said.
Even Motorola corporate VP/GM Dick Day was reluctant to say when IP would step in and take over the business.
"IP is going to take some time to transition," he said. "Until that happens, there's business to be had with circuit switched."
So why the IP deal with Lucent?
"Why not is the other question," Day replied. "Between the two of us, we have a great opportunity to do an end-to-end solution."
Dan Moloney, General Instrument Corp.'s SVP-advanced network and telecom systems, said he wasn't surprised to see Lucent chasing cable business.
"We've obviously had discussions with Lucent. Lucent has made no bones about their interest in getting into this business," he said.
That interest, he promised, will meet competition.
"They understand that we have a very strong position in the marketplace, and, particularly, if you look at the convergence marketplace in the home, nobody can bring to the table what we can bring," he said.
Lakin agreed.
"They (Lucent) don't have the HFC base. They're claiming a lot of things. Today, if you look at the headend, from the analog HFC all the way through all of the voice and data all the way back to the Nortel servers, nobody can claim they have it like we have," said Lakin.
Bill Wall, Scientific-Atlanta Inc.'s technical director in the subscriber networks sector was cool to IP telephony.
"I think this stuff's in its infancy right now," he said. "To be a viable service, you really have to offer all of the different class services that traditional telephony offers and we're nowhere near that. I think the whole industry is a couple years away yet."
Robert Schack, broadband networks marketing director at Cisco Systems Inc. agreed that IP telephony is a ways off.
"The cable component question 'Is IP telephony real?' is pretty much understood. When DOCSIS 1.1 comes out, that's done," he said. "The question of 'Is IP telephony real or there in terms do you replace switches?' that's a generic issue for the market."
That market will have to address a number of technological challenges, but should be heartened by high-speed data services success rates.
"We're putting in data," he said. "You can't lead with voice and integrate with data and get to a superior product. You can with IP, but you have this back office which is part of the general purview of where there's an issue with IP for everybody."
In the end, though, he conceded "maybe there has to be more technological work, but if we flash forward a couple years, you're going to have a business."
Motorola will spend those years with Lucent.
"Between the two of us, we have a great opportunity to do an end-to-end solution," Day said. "Lucent makes a lot of sense for us."
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