Ray Van Eng (05/24/97)
PRODCUT AD
Modems are getting faster and faster these days and there is no end in sight. With their x2 modems barley out of the gate, the folks at U.S. Robotics (USR) are already working on the next generation of modems aimed at merging the x2 technology which allows data to travel at 56Kbps with the much speedier ADSL telephony service at 1.5 Mbps or higher. Initially, USR will probably start with the "ADSL Light", a low end service that transmit data between 128 Kbps and 256 Kbps. The new product, dubbed "x2/DSL" will be a hybrid creature built around Texas Instrument's new TMS320C6x DSP (digital signal processing) chip which has enough horsepower to carry out 1.6 billion instructions per second. Because the chips are programmable (i.e. software upgradable), USR is developing software to exploit this feature for the x2/DSL modems to handle the dual mode -- x2 and ADSL -- which are both designed to use a regular telephone line for data communication. Customers of the x2/DSL modems which will become available in the first half of 1998 will then be able to decide when to upgrade their modems to the higher connection speed. Microsoft has already pledged support for the x2/DSL technology. As for its existing x2 line of modems which begun selling in February this year, USR is offering a money back guarantee and a free software or modem upgrade package to protect its customers' investment should a 56 Kbps standard becomes established early next year. The move is assure potential buyers that purchasing the x2 modems is "worry free". Other contenders in the 56 Kbps standard game are Rockwell, Motorola and Lucent Technologies, all of which do not "talk to"the x2 modems, thereby creating incompatibility problems. According to Dataquest, the 56 Kbps modem market is forecast to grow to 37% in the U.S. & Canada this year. Also today, the IBM Global Services has announced that
it has become the single largest ISP to install the x2 technology at more
than 500 North American locations.
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