Meeting of ADSL minds: Datacomm Summit offers picture of vendors' scheme for DMT-based systems

To fully explain its collaborative plans for asymmetrical digital subscriber line chipsets to its peers and the press, Texas Instruments hosted the TI Datacomm Summit Jan. 27 and 28 in Santa Fe, N.M.

Participants included TI, Amati and Westell-linked by TI's acquisition of Amati and strategic partnership with Westell-as well as GTE and customer premises equipment maker Efficient Networks.

TI's goal with the summit was to explain to reporters and analysts how it and its partners will proceed with ADSL development.

TI's plans revolve around discrete multitone (DMT) modulation, capitalizing on its strength in digital signal processors (DSPs), the microchips that are the heart of an ADSL solution. TI is reported by third-party researchers to be the worldwide market leader in DSP sales, with a 45% share in 1996. TI believes that its TMS320C6x DSPs are ideal for handling the increased workload that ADSL places on DSPs.

Even if TI's position that its DSP technology is superior to other chipsets does not hold true, the alliances it has formed put it in a prime position to further enhance its DSP business via the ADSL market. That fact was illustrated at the summit by the panel of companies it put together.

TI specifically wanted the companies involved to participate, and no others were invited to the summit, said James Collinge, TI's marketing manager for network access products. The only one of the five participating companies not directly involved with eventual product lines was GTE, but TI has been working with GTE for a couple of years to determine what carriers need from ADSL chipsets, Collinge said.

"The key is to better understand the issues of deploying a consumer-oriented broadband service," he said.

With its acquisition of Amati last year, TI brought the top DMT company into the fold. But its strategic alliance with Westell also aligned it with the top ADSL systems integration company. Westell, which has focused on carrierless amplitude/phase modulation-based systems, will now turn its attention to developing DMT-based systems using TI's chipsets.

"A DSP chip doesn't get you DSL," said Jose Gomez, Westell's global alliances director. "Westell, as a systems integrator, will take the chipsets and turn them into DSL systems."

The summit offered the partners the opportunity to clarify the direction of the market, the importance of DSPs and the roles in developing a line based on TI's chips, Gomez said. In addition to presentations by executives from the participating companies, hands-on teams from the various companies were available to field questions.

"We're accustomed to getting executives together and making announcements, and the press and analysts may wonder what's really there," Gomez said.

While TI, Amati and Westell will develop the base technology and systems, a missing component was CPE design. Efficient Networks brought that perspective to the table, according to Collinge, although no official relationship between Efficient and TI has been announced.

"Our strategy is to focus on market segments-the CPE side as well as the central office side," Collinge said.

Efficient brings a knowledge of what it takes to make ADSL seamless for consumers, he said.

Kevin Snyder, assistant vice president for product and process development for GTE's competitive local exchange carrier division, GTE Communications, presenteda carrier's perspective on ADSL. Snyder said that GTE has aggressive plans for ADSL deployment in 1998 and that while the summit was an opportunity for him to present GTE's needs for ADSL capabilities to the equipment makers on hand, it also gave him insight into what's coming in terms of ADSL equipment development.

"The highlight to me is the movement forward with DSPs, which will present advantages for us," Snyder said. "With the DSPs, we'll be able to upgrade [ADSL systems] with software downloads."

Texas Instruments Major chipset maker moving heavily into DSL

Amati Developer of DMT technology, now a TI subsidiary

Westell Leading developer of CAP-based systems, TI strategic partner

Efficient Networks Customer premises data equipment specialist

GTE Carrier perspective on data strategies from CLEC vantage point