| VOIP Stumbles, But Stay on the Line |
The storied history of misplaced market expectations would make for a useful healing element in the obituary of Lucent's scuttled cable phone line, were anyone to write it.
For starters, Lucent is hardly the first big equipment supplier to choose the hokey-pokey as its cable technology dance. Intel Corp. and Hewlett-Packard both put their left foot in, then took their left foot out, of the cable modem business. Neither stayed long enough to shake it all about.
Likewise, there's a history between cable technologists and the company now calling itself Lucent. In the early 1990s, when Lucent was Bell Laboratories, it developed a cable phone equipment line with its then-partner, Antec Corp. The gear, branded "cable loop carrier," ultimately tied up too many research and development dollars and was cancelled.
Last week's Lucent development is sad, as are most layoff byproducts. The people who were making its "Pathstar" and related cable phone products are smart and earnest. They re-entered the cable phone market in 1999 with believable contrition about the company's previous efforts. But, Lucent apparently found itself at the unhappy intersection of financial bloat and market impatience. It took its left foot out.
When big technology suppliers pull out of cable, it usually belies the un-reality of expecting massive market penetration, really fast. H-P, which entered the cable modem market with gusto in 1994 -- who can forget the gigantic kayak paddles distributed around the industry? -- mis-interpreted order sluggishness in late '96 for data stasis. Hindsight shows a missed opportunity of some 4 million deployed modems in the U.S., as of the end of 2000.
Managed expectations lessen later disappointments, which brings us to cable's current plans for voice over IP. Will it happen? Almost certainly. Why? Because all technology compass readings are pointing toward Internet Protocol; because it's an incremental expense, and because it re-uses the data path the industry is already putting in place with cable modems. When? In four distinct and fairly predictable phases.
But first, some basics. Voice-over-IP contributes another awkward acronym to cable's jargon cocktail: VoIP. (A few brave souls say it as a word - "voyp" - but end up sounding like an arrythmic windshield wiper or, at best, a background artist for Laurie Anderson.)
Cable VoIP has a technical shepherd: The CableLabs "PacketCable" group. In a blatant simplification, PacketCable is a set of software-based mechanisms written to do exactly what today's analog, circuit switched phone network does, from dial tone to ring tone. Unlike other VoIP specification efforts, though, which address only portions of how to make a phone call work in IP, PacketCable maps out the entire journey. This is no minor task, yet much of the spec-writing work is already done.
Just as they did with DOCSIS, expect MSOs to vigilantly insist that vendors adhere to PacketCable. Already, MSOs are raising the red flag against any de facto standards attempts by the supplier community, warning that they'll place their votes with purchase orders.
PacketCable has a technical pre-requisite: DOCSIS 1.1. This is the first phase in cable's VoIP work.
PacketCable needs DOCSIS 1.1 for its quality of service (QoS) features, so that calls placed over the cable IP path (today's cable modem path) sound clear and synchronized, and parallel the grade of service you currently get when you talk on a wired phone.
There are four test waves scheduled this year for DOCSIS 1.1. Results will be announced on March 30, June 22, September 28, and December 21. It took three full waves for suppliers to earn compliance for DOCSIS 1.0-based gear, which is the stuff being deployed today. CableLabs is in its second test wave for 1.1-based gear, with results expected at the end of next month. If history repeats itself, it will be the June 22 round that produces the first certified 1.1 gear.
Add nine months or so for PacketCable tests - this is phase two -- and cable's foray into VoIP becomes a Spring '02 phenomenon. Until then, lab tests and market trials. That's phase three, which will also yield knowledge on how to make the service deployable across millions of subscribers. Phase four is the launches themselves.
Everything from phase 2 onward will likely vary somewhat, MSO by MSO. AT&T Broadband has indicated a preference for "lifeline" phone, meaning the phone remains useable even if the power is out. Doing so requires shoring up the HFC plant to accommodate the powering needs of the VOIP gear when the power grid is out.
Others, like AOL Time Warner and Comcast, are more interested in voice as a sort of audio service that complements their existing data efforts.
That's the who, what, when and why of cable VOIP. Next time, the "how."
This column originally appeared in the Broadband Week section of Multichannel News.