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The first quarter of 2004 appeared to mark a watershed in the long protracted conflict between Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) and the cable data services, the principal competitors in the broadband market within North America. By all accounts, cable growth slowed while that of DSL increase, the first clear evidence that momentum has finally shifted to the later entrant into the high-speed access marketplace. Evidence is accumulating that the incumbent local exchange carriers may be abandoning the aggressive pricing that they used to position DSL so effectively against cable in the past. Determining the overall trend in DSL pricing is complicated by the fact that the data services, let alone the total bundle of services for the two distinct access technologies, are markedly divergent. Whether DSL's momentum will continue may be questioned, however. Kolko's Forrester report contains survey data indicating price is the major determinant in selecting a service among 43 percent of new subscribers. Perhaps the ILECs may want to consider eating that universal service fee once again. INSET: Speeding toward DBS.

This article on a continued partnership between chip vendors in North America and Europe with system and telecommunication original equipment manufacturers (OEM) in Asia to deploy the WiMax wireless-broadband standard. Just recently, Bangalore, India-based OEM Tata Elxsi signed on with Texas Instruments (TI) in a mobile WiMax initiative. Meanwhile, Great Britain-based picoChip has found a Chinese partner for its WiMax silicon. The TI/Tata Elxsi partnerships hopes to provide telecom-equipment vendors with an accelerated path to mobile-WiMax-base-station development. Meanwhile, the latest partnership of picoChip is with Chinese telecom OEM China GrenTech.