Wave Report

Wireless Retail, Inc. (WRI) and Cox Communications, Inc. announced today the availability of Cox Communications High Speed Internet Service at nearly 70 Wireless Retail store-in-a-store locations in Sam's Clubs, BJ's Wholesale Clubs, Menards and other retailers located in Cox markets. Wireless Retail, Inc. is a provider of outsourced retail sales solutions for service-based consumer electronic products. According to the terms of the agreement, WRI will initially sell Cox High-Speed Internet with possible plans to include Cox's video and telephony offerings at a later date.

Cox stated that within their markets, 7 out of 10 high-speed Internet customers choose Cox over DSL. According to Cox Communications research, 81 percent of Cox subscribers choose High-Speed Internet service from Cox for its speed; 47 percent choose Cox High-Speed Internet for its always-on access.

Wireless Retail places trained sales consultants in fixtures inside retail partners' stores to leverage existing traffic. Wireless Retail stated that they are the only company in the country currently operating this type of program, for service-based consumer electronic products, in major national retail chains. The company has more than 2,500 distribution points.

http://www.cox.com
http://www.wirelessretailinc.com

***BellSouth and DIRECTV Agree to Bundle Satellite TV with BellSouth Answers Bundle
(August 27)

BellSouth and DIRECTV, Inc., today announced a strategic marketing alliance to offer DIRECTV digital satellite television service to BellSouth customers in residential homes, in early 2004. Today, in the BellSouth Answers bundle, BellSouth customers can make one call to order and receive one bill for all their communication services through BellSouth:

* High-speed DSL or dial-up Internet service;
* Local and long distance service with an array of calling features;
* Wireless; and
* Voicemail and e-mail services.

Starting early next year, BellSouth residential customers will be able to bundle DIRECTV with their other communications services at packaged, discounted savings each month. DIRECTV and BellSouth also announced immediate plans to begin exploring the integration of digital satellite and DSL technology, including options for networking solutions over the BellSouth fiber network.

BellSouth/DIRECTV Agreement Summary

* BellSouth partners with DIRECTV exclusively for DBS digital satellite television
* BellSouth and DIRECTV discount their respective services, if sold in the BellSouth Answers bundle
* BellSouth markets, sells and schedules the install for DIRECTV service
* DIRECTV, through its Home Service Provider network, will install the DIRECTV System hardware
* BellSouth and DIRECTV will focus on providing a seamless customer service experience for BellSouth bundle customers
* BellSouth provides the customer with a single, integrated bill
* BellSouth has flexibility in the pricing and packaging of its bundles, while maintaining DIRECTV's branding and pricing integrity.
* Sales launch planned for early 2004, throughout the entire nine-state BellSouth region

BellSouth and DIRECTV plan to immediately begin exploring joint development activities focused on, among other things, the integration of digital satellite and terrestrial broadband services.

http://www.bellsouth.com
http://www.DIRECTV.com

***Samsung Electronics Announces JEDEC-Compliant 256Mb GDDR2 for 3D Graphics
(August 27)

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., a developer of semiconductor memory technology, today announces production of its 256-megabit (Mb) Graphics Double Data Rate2 (GDDR2) SDRAM. Samsung believes the 256Mb capacity will enable ultra high-density graphics memory cards of 512Mbytes, supporting the expanding market of 3D graphics software.

The new device, which has already been supplied to leading graphics card manufacturers, adopts a JEDEC-standard 144-ball Fine-pitch Ball Grid Array (FBGA) package. This is intended to to enable graphic card manufacturers to build memory density from 128Mb GDDR2 SDRAM without redesigning the graphic card. Samsung's 256Mb GDDR2 SDRAM also supports GDDR3, which awaits JEDEC standard approval next month.

Samsung's GDDR2 devices incorporate new technical features such as On-Die-Termination (ODT), Off-Chip driver-Calibration (OCD) and posted CAS, to boost performance by 50 percent over graphics DDR SDRAM, according to the company. The 1.6-gigabit per second pin data rate delivers an aggregate bandwidth of 6.4-gigabytes per second.

Samsung has developed a 1Gbps 128Mb GDDR2 SDRAM in July 2002. Samsung will move to full-scale production of next generation graphics DDR SDRAM in the second half of 2003. Samsung's goal is to maintain 50% market share in graphics DRAM, which is forecast to reach 1.7 billion US$ by 2005.

http://www.samsungsemi.de

0330.2 Story of the Issue

***Infonetics Research: Worldwide DSLAM Revenue Up 12% from 1Q03
(August 21)

Worldwide DSLAM equipment revenue is up 12% from 1Q03 to 2Q03 at $809 million, and DSL CPE revenue is up 6% at $458 million, according to Infonetics Research's DSL Aggregation Hardware and DSL CPE quarterly worldwide market share and forecast reports. Worldwide DSLAM ports grew 12% from 1Q03 to 2Q03. DSLAM revenue growth is being fueled by a rise in ADSL, which carriers are deploying despite making capex reductions.

Other highlights:

-- In second quarter 2003, worldwide IP DSLAM port revenue jumped to $124 million and ports hit 1.3 million.
-- IP DSLAMs represent 16% of the worldwide DSLAM market.
-- Worldwide totals for DSL CPE units grew 8% from 1Q03 to 2Q03, and revenue grew 6%.

Asia Pacific has been the leader in terms of DSLAM revenue market share, with 45%. Broadband deployments are very strong there, and have been driven by government support. Alcatel has lost its previous leadership position in Asia Pacific due to the emergence of UTStarcom, Corecess, Sumitomo, and Samsung into the DSLAM market. Infonetics stated that these new entrants are more competitive on port pricing than Alcatel, offer end-to-end (DSLAM and DSL CPE) solutions, and are regionally based companies with strong national ties.

2Q03 Market Highlights

-- As in first quarter 2003, Alcatel leads in every region for overall DSLAM port and revenue market share except Asia Pacific, where UTStarcom leads
-- In the IP DSLAM category, UTStarcom is the #1 worldwide leader, with 61% of revenue and 62% of ports, Corecess is in second place with 21% of revenue, and fast-growing Ericsson is in third with 7% of ports.

The Broadband Hardware reports track DSL CPE, ATM DSLAMs, IP DSLAMs, NGDLCs, broadband loop carriers. Worldwide and regional market share and forecasts are updated quarterly and cover all regions (worldwide, North America, EMEA, Asia Pacific, CALA).

Companies tracked in this service include ADTRAN, AFC, Alcatel, Cisco, Corecess, Fujitsu, Lucent, Marconi, Motorola, NEC, Netopia, Nokia, Polycom, Samsung, Siemens, Sumitomo, Thomson Multimedia, Toshiba, US Robotics, UTStarcom, and others.

http://www.infonetics.com

0330.3 Cable Modems

***Scientific-Atlanta Announces CableHome and PacketCable Certifications
(August 25)

Scientific-Atlanta announced that two products have received Cable Labs certifications. The WebSTAR DPX2203 product received CableLabs PacketCable certification status in the recently completed Certification Wave 26. In the same wave, the WebSTAR DPR2320, the company's new cable modem gateway, received CableLabs CableHome 1.0 certified status.

The WebSTAR DPX2203 Embedded Media Terminal Adapter (EMTA) can enable cable operators to offer telephony and high-speed data services using VoIP technology. PacketCable certification ensures interoperability with other PacketCable certified and qualified devices including Call Management Servers, Media Gateways and Cable Modem Termination Systems (CMTS).

The WebSTAR DPX2203 Cable Modem features an embedded media terminal adapter and two RJ-11 telephone ports for voice services, as well as an RJ-45 Ethernet port and a USB port for connectivity. The hardware platform of the DPX2203 is designed to comply with PacketCable 1.0 specifications. The DPX2203 is currently scheduled for availability by end of this calendar quarter.

The WebSTAR DPR2320 cable modem gateway will be able to support wireless, Ethernet or USB technology to home and small office networking solution for connecting multiple PCs. The DPR2320 is currently being evaluated by cable operators. It joins the WebSTAR family of gateway modems, which includes the WebSTAR DPR362, a product that is more geared toward commercial applications. The DPR2320 is currently scheduled for availability by the end of this calendar quarter.

Scientific-Atlanta, Inc. is a supplier of digital content distribution systems, transmission networks for broadband access to the home, digital interactive set-tops and subscriber systems designed for video, high-speed Internet and voice over IP (VoIP) networks.

http://www.scientificatlanta.com

0330.4 Video on Demand

***RCN Corporation Launches Cinemax On Demand
(August 26)

RCN Corporation announced today the launch of Cinemax On Demand, Cinemax's subscription video on demand (SVOD) product, in the Philadelphia, New York and Massachusetts markets. Cinemax On Demand is a new service for digital subscribers, providing access to movies and late night features, all available 24 hours a day. Customers can also enjoy the technological capabilities of pausing, rewinding and fast-forwarding their selection. Cinemax On Demand will be available at no additional charge to RCN customers who subscribe to HBO, HBO on Demand and Cinemax. Otherwise, Cinemax On Demand is available exclusively to Cinemax digital subscribers for a flat monthly fee of $4.95.

RCN started offering SVOD for HBO on Demand in late July, and has also launched other products and services such as Impulse on Demand (VOD), HDTV, wired and wireless home LANs and MegaModem, a cable modem with download speeds up to 3.0 Mbps.

RCN Corporation is a large facilities-based competitive provider of bundled phone, cable television and high-speed Internet services, with more than 1 million customer connections. It operates in Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Washington DC.

http://www.rcn.com

0330.5 DSL

***Westell Selects TI Router-on-a-Chip for New DSL Modems
(August 25)

Westell Technologies, Inc., a provider of broadband access solutions, and Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) announced today that Westell has selected TI's DSL router-on-a-chip to support the recently announced expansion of the Westell family of WireSpeed modems.

The new WireSpeed ProLine and LiteLine products integrate TI's AR7 single-chip ADSL modem technology. These two new Westell WireSpeed product lines are based on the new ITU standards for ADSL2, ADSL2+ and Reach Extended ADSL2 (READSL), designed to deliver higher ADSL speeds to customers and allow service providers to extend their service areas.

Both new product lines are currently undergoing testing in service provider labs and will be available for volume shipment in October. ADSL2, ADSL2+ and READSL will be available via simple software upgrade in January 2004.

Westell Technologies, Inc. is a broadband access solutions company that provides broadband products, service solutions, and conferencing solutions for carriers, service providers and business enterprises around the world.

http://www.ti.com
http://www.westell.com

***LSI Logic Offers New HomeBASE ADSL Chipset
(August 19)

LSI Logic Corporation today announced enhancements to its line of HomeBASE ADSL Ethernet chipsets for the customer premise equipment (CPE) market. The new offering features the AR8203, a fifth-generation SpeedREACH ADSL analog front-end (AFE), a network processor with glueless interface to 802.11 WLAN, and a combination USB/Ethernet 10/100 PHY chip that supports the simultaneous operation of both functions. The three chips are incorporated into a HomeBASE modem that is available as a manufacturing kit to CPE manufacturers.

With support for the Linux operating system, the new LSI Logic HomeBASE solution includes the hardware and software needed for bridge, router or access point mode operations. The AR901 network processor integrates a DMT engine, a 200MHz ARM9 processor, a hardware-based ATM SAR, and a 10/100 Ethernet controller, SDRAM controller and a proprietary extreme bus bridge (EBB). The EBB can be configured as PCI or PCMIA to interface with 8.2.11 WLAN chipsets. On-chip hardware acceleration combined with a 200 MHz ARM922 processor is intended to maximize packet throughput performance even in router mode with the firewall enabled.

On the WAN side, the AR901 has a new low-pin-count interface to LSI Logic's AR8203 SpeedREACH AFE. The ADSL AFE features 14-bit linear analog to digital and digital to analog converters, and an integrated five-volt line driver, and is offered in a tiny 64-pin QFN package. On the LAN side, the AR901 connects to the AR229, the combination USB and Ethernet 10/100 PHY chip that provides modem manufacturers the option of both functionalities. The 10/100 Ethernet PHY offers the Auto-MDIX function that detects and corrects network cross-cabling issues.

LSI stated that the improved DMT and AFE boost rate/reach performance enables telecommunication companies to expand their DSL coverage area. The rate/reach performance of the enhanced HomeBASE solution exceeds TR-048 requirements, and is in compliance with the new stricter rate/reach limits (WT-085) being proposed by the U.S. telephone companies. The modem is interoperable with some DSLAMs and compliant with all ADSL standards including T1.413 i2, G.992.1 (G.dmt), and G.992.2 (G.lite) with support for Annex A and Annex B.

In addition to data distribution, the HomeBASE product line can also address service provider requirements for product differentiation, such as voice and video capabilities when used with the LSI Logic ZSP digital signal processors, digital rights management (DRM) capabilities and MPEG-based proprietary compression technologies.

LSI Logic's HomeBASE ADSL Ethernet/USB chipset (AR8203, AR901 and AR229) is available now at $21 in quantities of 10,000. The HomeBASE reference modem is available immediately to qualified customers for evaluation and manufacturing purposes through local LSI Logic sales representatives .

LSI Logic Corporation is a designer and manufacturer of communications, consumer and storage semiconductors for applications that access, interconnect and store data, voice and video.

http://www.lsilogic.com

***Verizon Plans to Offer SHDSL Up to 1.5M with QoS
(July 31)

Verizon has filed for FCC authority to provide symmetric high bit-rate DSL (SHDSL) technology to businesses and information service providers. Under terms of the proposed service offering, Verizon would offer SHDSL with variable bit rate, non -real time (VBRnrt) quality of service (QoS).

Verizon's SHDSL products will be symmetric offerings, delivering speeds up to 1.5 Mbps in both directions with VBRnrt quality of service, the company stated, which takes priority over regular DSL traffic on the network during times of congestion.

Based on successful trials in Florida and Maryland, Verizon plans to offer SHDSL technology nationwide within the serving areas of Verizon's current footprint to small and medium sized businesses, to branch offices of Enterprise businesses, and to Internet service providers (ISPs).

Verizon's VBRnrt arrangement supports bursty data traffic with average and peak traffic parameters and allows SHDSL traffic to take precedence over unspecified bit rate (UBR) traffic in the network. Typically ADSL is provisioned with a UBR or "best effort" quality of service. Current implementations of SHDSL and SDSL are often offered with UBR, which does not address traffic-related service priorities; there are no targets for loss or transfer delay during the connection.

Business customers will be able to order SHDSL technology using Verizon's Business SHDSL service, while ISP's will order the wholesale offering called Infospeed Premium DSL service. Both Verizon Business SHDSL service and Verizon Infospeed Premium DSL service will provide high-speed Internet access with several symmetric speed options. Verizon's Business SHDSL will be a data-only service bundled with popular business features such as static IP, business-class email, domain name service, remote dial-up access, Web space, and news. Infospeed Premium DSL service will be a transport-only offering that ISPs can use to provide the SHSDL service to their customers.

http://www.verizon.com

0330.6 3D

***IMS CharacterCreator Now Available for IMS CharacterGenerator Studio
(August 27)

Interactive Multimedia Solutions, Inc., a provider of voice-to-animation solutions for the multimedia market, today announced the availability of IMS CharacterCreator, an automated content creation application that allows the creation of 3D characters from 2D digital photographs. This application is a companion product to IMS CharacterGenerator Studio, and allows users to incorporate the characters they create into multimedia and graphics presentations created using Director from Macromedia, Inc. IMS CharacterCreator is available to multimedia developers and graphics designers who want to create their own characters for use in presentations created for the web, CD-ROMs, eLearning, corporate training, and applications that incorporate the use of talking animated characters.

IMS CharacterCreator allows users to create 3D characters from one or two digital photos. The photos can be of a real human face, or one created by an artist. The core engine that drives the creation of the 3D character from 2D photos is from CyberExtruder, an IMS Alliance Partner. The IMS CharacterCreator product is designed to address the needs of both the professional and the hobbyist multimedia developer. According to IMS, all the user needs to do is load a front and profile digital image, and the IMS CharacterCreator application essentially does the rest.

The IMS CharacterCreator product allows the user to create a high-quality 3D character with just a few mouse clicks, or they can pay attention to every detail of the character's face with optimization controls available within the application. As an added feature, the user can add different bodies to the characters they create. There is also an option that allows the user to add new textures to the available character bodies. This feature allows for further customization of the characters that are created by the user. Characters created using IMS CharacterCreator are exportable to IMS CharacterGenerator Studio. Using that application, character animations can be created in Macromedia Director using a simple audio file. The animations are rendered in Macromedia's Shockwave player.

IMS CharacterCreator can be purchased directly from the IMS web site, at an introductory price of $295 for the "Studio" version, and $649 for the "Professional" version.

http://www.IMS3D.com

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