THE FUTURE AS SEEN THROUGH TECHNOLOGY

SPEED FREAK

Despite a DSL market that has become barren for most vendors, chip maker Ikanos Communications sees the light at the end of the tunnel. The company recently released a family of programmable chipsets for products that deliver speeds up to 100 Mb/s for short distances over existing copper pairs.

Ikanos initially is targeting its chipset to an emerging market that has been overlooked by many carriers: the metro fiber ring extension. Using its SmartLeap 8100 for broadband access concentrators and CleverConnect 150 for customer premises equipment, the company is promising vendors a new type of equipment that can be used to provide Ethernet services to businesses not connected — but close to — fiber routes. Like other DSL chipsets, the SmartLeap and CleverConnect also support more traditional applications.

“The idea is to leverage the existing copper for everything it's worth,” said Richard Sekar, vice president of marketing for Ikanos.

Just as important, the chipset, which supports long-range fast Ethernet, Ethernet in the first mile and very high bit-rate DSL, can be ratcheted down to provide service as slow as 64 kb/s at a distance of up to 5000 feet. “People don't sell bandwidth, they sell services,” Sekar said.
—Vince Vittore
www.ikanos.com

AFFORDABLE 3G

With an IP architecture that supports data applications up to 2.4 Mb/s, Airvana hopes CDMA wireless operators reach 3G nirvana.

The company's focus is on a third-generation CDMA technology called 1X Evolution Data Only, or 1XEV-DO. Service providers can chose to deploy 1XEV-DO over a variety of IP transport networks such as optical, metro Ethernet, frame relay and ATM. Combining 1XEV-DO with Airvana's IP architecture translates into the lowest cost per bit of any 3G technology, according to Sanjeev Verma, Airvana's co-founder and vice president of marketing and business development.

The company estimates a wireless operator covering 1 million pops can reach EBITDA-positive within four years — even with only 10% customer penetration. In many cases, an operator can deploy an Airvana network through an entire city for the cost of a single voice switch.

Airvana recently signed a joint development and supply agreement with Nortel Networks to develop 1XEV-DO solutions for Nortel's CDMA Metro Cell.
— Lynnette Luna
www.airvananet.com