Clear the room; we're talking standards - 56-Kbps modem standards - Industry Trend or Event - Editorial

Communications News, March, 1997 by Ripley Hotch

As one attendee at the recent ComNet '97 show said, "If you want to see an empty room at a conference, set up a session on standards." He should know, because he does conference meetings.

I bring this up because our cover interview is with US Robotics' Casey Cowell, who talks at great length about the new 56 kb/s modems the company is rolling out. What he doesn't talk about is the issue of standards for this new technology. And therein lies a problem.

Two groups are interested in having their technology set the standard: one headed by Lucent and Rockwell, and the other headed by US Robotics. The Lucent/Rockwell group calls their proposed standard K56plus. USR's is X2.

The issue will be settled, of course, by the ITU, and the two groups are pointing fingers about how the standards are even proposed. The Rockwell group has gone through the TIA on the national level. USR has bypassed TIA and gone directly to the ITU. We'll probably get some kind of blended standard. The standard is expected to be issued in December.

USR insists that the modems it is putting on the market now will be upgradeable by a download in software or firmware. Multi-Tech, a major modem provider in the Lucent/Rockwell camp, has put out a white paper questioning that--i.e., if you don't know what the standards are, how can you be sure the modem is upgradeable to that standard? USR, on the other side, insists that it will do the upgrade, and points to its record of doing so in the past as proof. It also says that the Rockwell camp is deliberately trying to scare the market into immobility until its own product is ready to ship. Shades of Microsoft!

Nobody who deals with remote access (and who doesn't these days?) can be unaware of the stakes involved. Everyone wants faster access, and 56 kb/s modems certainly promise that. If the technology delivers, then there are millions of modem slots to be filled with replacements. USR says it has already signed up 325 ISPs representing 18 million users worldwide. The stakes are huge, so we shouldn't be surprised by the hype and the squabbling.

Tiresome as the arguments sometimes may be, they do help clarify the issues, as each side looks for an advantage over the other. But there are some potential bumps in the road.

For one thing, the technology works through a cooperation between the central office switch and the ISP. The ISP routes the connection request to the CO through its T1 link, and thus through the network to the receiving modem, so there is only one digital to analog conversion.

Of course, none of it will work right now without the same kind of technology at both ends of the link. I suspect there is a certain amount of disingenuous hype among manufacturers for double-speed modems, as they try to drum up enthusiasm among potential users.

But when users start pestering you (and they will) about getting these faster modems, you will have to expend some patience explaining to them that they're still going to be going 28.8 kb/s for the time being.

Interestingly, the method of "peeling off" the digital signal from the analog signal at the CO switch is the basis of Nortel's Internet Thruway, intended to separate out the small office/home office traffic.

Perhaps this will all come together with the newest DSL flavor (A,H,V,X,R2D2, whatever) to give us all unlimited access at stunning rates and low cost. Hope springs eternal. For more on DSL technology, join us in April.