Love. Tears. Romance. Like millions of other Japanese, Midori Kato has been transfixed by the Korean soap opera Winter Sonata. But the 42-year-old freelance editor started watching the weekly drama even before it became available on broadcast television in April. Instead of watching on her TV, she logged on to the Web over a blazing 100-megabit-per-second broadband link.- from September, 2004 Business Week editorial
Tom’s Networking reports that SMC’s product roadmap for ADSL2 products includes the ADSL2 Barricade g, supporting DSL speeds of 12Mbps. It will combine an 802.11g Wireless Access Point, four port 10/100 switch and ADSL/ADSL2 modem. The product is already Wi-Fi certified and is undergoing trials by “major ISPs”, including TietoEnator of Sweden.
The ADSL2 Barricade g will be “broadly available” in Q4, 2004 to service providers only. Wired ADSL2 1 port and 4 port versions are currently being developed for the North American market, and will join the ADSL2 Barricade g for distribution over Q4 2004. Firmware upgrades to ADSL2+ are currently under development.
ADSL2 technology increases downstream data rates to 12Mbps and extends the reach. ADSL2+ doubles the maximum frequency used for downstream data transmission from 1.1 to 2.2 MHz to bring downstream data rates of 25Mbps on phone lines as long as 5000 feet.
Wireless IP-TV boxes might be placed in a variety of rooms, and fed from a single ADSL-2 wireless hub.
Amino’s AmiNET500 (right), is an IPTV set-top box with digital video recording functionality and an 80GB hard drive. The AmiNet500 runs embedded Linux and can record 40 hours of content. The first member of the product line is targeted at the US market and may be available in October.
“Any content which is delivered in encrypted form will also be stored as encrypted content, and each viewing will require validation with the originating server,” said product manager Nick Ebsworth.
Atheros hopes its AR5005VA, a multiple-radio/smart-antenna chipset for robust HDTV-quality wireless applications will be used for similar applications. Atheros and NEC Electronics collaborated on an Audio Video (AV) wireless module capable of seamless wireless connectivity between multimedia sources such as personal computers (PCs), personal video recorders (PVRs), DVD players, set-top boxes, and display devices.
Optibase provides IP-TV services to a variety of telephone companies. IP-TV settops might be made by Cisco/Linksys/Equator. Cisco said it’s acquisition of P-Cube allows it to offer service providers capabilities for controlling and managing voice-over-IP, interactive gaming, video on demand and peer-to-peer applications.
Millions of subscribers in Asia subscribe to “cable-like” video services using high-speed DSL. Typically they get 8 Mbps or faster, for less than $30/month.
Verizon and SBC have recently begun extending fiber-optic networks for television and other video programming since they don’t have to share those lines with competitors. But fiber networks are expensive. Twisted pair is already there - and being used successfully in Asia.
Come on Qwest. Just do it - hang 100 Mbps access points on every utility pole. Or we’ll do it ourselves.
For free.
