...
> Also, the analysts seem to think that USR has a 6 month jump on
> Rockwell/Lucent, and as it is a flash process with USR (as opposed to
> a hardware swap for Rockwell/Lucent hosts) widescale deployment of x2
> will be much, much faster. Probably on the order of a full year in
> many areas.
And those analysts are likely wrong. The local USR SE is demoing a USR
TC + Netserver PRI for a local ISP on January the 3rd. I was invited. I
expected to be able to see X2 in operation (esp. since X2 has been
announced to be in beta during December), but the SE told me that "X2
would not be available". Since USR's own SEs will not, or can not
demonstrate X2 on January 3rd, I don't think X2 even close to being ready
that fast.
> Lastly is the problem of when a standard is agreed upon, many
> rockwell/Lucent users will have to upgrade their hardware again, with
> USR it is a flash. Even if they pull off a flash process, that is new
> to many of them (not USR), and they will be fighting those issues
> along with catching up on 56K technology.
As far as I know, the Lucent stuff is all software based. The
Lucent chipset is completely different internally from Rockwell, and will
implement different protocols. Lucent is doing v.flex and v.flex2, while
Rockwell is doing K56, which Rockwell will be making compatible with
v.flex. Regardless of what Rockwell does, Lucent is setting the
direction.
Rockwell/Ascend already has software upgradeable modems, and has had
them for over a year. Lucent (as AT&T) has been making software
upgradable modems much longer than that.
I'm putting my money on v.flex. Lucent has more experience in the
telecom area than USR. Plus, v.flex is a completely new chipset designed
for 56k. USR will be running x2 on modems with a much older design (I
don't belive the TC digital modems have changed at all in the last year).
Tom