For those who like mash-ups, here's a pair of seemingly unrelated but too-close-to-separate items. Silicon fabricators are pressing hard, but can't keep up with demand for DOCSIS modem chips even as the cable industry pushes DOCSIS 3.0 and ultrafast broadband into the market to try to nail the coffin shut on DSL.
At the same time, Verizon (NYSE: VZ), a provider that had and apparently relinquished a huge speed advantage with FiOS when it cut back on new deployments, is boosting DSL speeds about as far as they can go: up to 15 Mbps down and 1 Mbps up.
From the cable side, Light Reading Cable reports that modem suppliers are having a tough time crunching down on getting chips from Broadcom and Texas Instruments and that lead times are hitting 24 to 30 weeks. This, of course, is "creating some challenges for us," an unnamed modem maker told the Internet publication.
On the other side of the street, Verizon is using the higher DSL speeds to try to rope in the 20 or so remaining dial-up subscribers who have not adopted broadband. The trick is that users must be within 7,000 feet of a central office. The good part, for Verizon at least, is that it's a lot cheaper than building FiOS FTTH everywhere and it does reach the lower limits of the FiOS bandwidth offering.
For more:
- see this story
- and this DSL Reports story
- Washington Post has this story
- and this story
Related articles:
Verizon lures dial-up users with new DSL bundles
Is DSL dipping or diving?
Comcast nears national DOCSIS 3.0 rollout