SWAP MEET: INSIGHT, AT&T TRADE SYSTEMS

Insight Midwest and AT&T Broadband announced last Thursday that they would execute a system trade. Under the agreement, Insight Midwest will get AT&T Broadband systems ? serving nearly 23,000 customers in Indiana and Kentucky ? in exchange for about 13,000 customers in Georgia and $25 million in cash. Insight Midwest is equally owned by Insight and AT&T Broadband and serves about 1.3 million subscribers in Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky and Ohio. The transaction is expected to close in Q1 of 2003, subject to regulatory review.

S-A INTRODUCES DOCSIS 2.0-FRIENDLY CABLE MODEM

Scientific-Atlanta announced last week that its WebSTAR DPX 2100 cable modem is now capable of supporting DOCSIS 2.0 specs (via a software download). The DPX 2100 only recently received DOCSIS 1.0 certification, and it will likely be ready for trials by the year's end. The new modem sports Broadcom's BCM2248 chip, which supports the advanced frequency-agile time-division multiple-access (A-TDMA) and synchronous code-division multiple-access (S-CDMA) modulation schemes required in the DOCSIS 2.0 spec.

AND THE EMMY GOES TO?

Motorola has won an Emmy Award from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (NATAS) for ?outstanding achievement in the development of consumer digital set-top boxes.? The company claimed its winged trophy in a ceremony held in New York last Wednesday. This is Motorola's seventh Emmy win. Motorola also announced that it had signed broadband deals with Telecable and ONO, two Spanish operators.

CATCH A BUZZ: SOCAL STARBUCKS OFFER WI-FI

If you thought it was hard enough to score a seat at your local Starbucks (what with the proliferation of glassy-eyed, jobless hipsters), put on some comfortable shoes, because you're standing. In conjunction with T-Mobile International, Starbucks outlets in Southern California are offering customers a Wi-Fi link that will allow Internet and e-mail access to laptops equipped with Wi-Fi 802.11 Ethernet cards. This means that caffeine fiends can get a steaming dollop of high-speed Internet access along with their venti mocha lattes, or whatever you call them.

INSIGHT LAUNCHES MAG RACK

Insight Communications launched niche VOD service Mag Rack to 214,000 VOD-ready homes in ten of its markets last week, as a precursor to a full-scale rollout. Mag Rack is now available in 1.6 million homes throughout the U.S.

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