Plugtek Powerline eLibrary
Peter Kempf, vice president of marketing, Wireless and Residential Gateway Access Products at Conexant Systems, spoke with DigiTimes about how the company is competing in the WLAN IC market through product differentiation and focused integration.
Q: What is Conexant’s approach to the WLAN IC market?
A: After our successful merger with GlobespanVirata, we launched an IEEE 802.11a/b/g solution that supports the 802.11e standard for QoS (quality of service) and the 802.11i standard for security. Moreover, we are currently developing high-speed IEEE802.11n solutions in order to extend our foothold in the market.
The market is becoming fairly competitive, and this has prompted Conexant to work on product differentiation and integration, including products that combine set-top box (STB), voice over IP (VoIP) and DSL capabilities.
Q: What is Conexant’s opinion of the new wireless technologies WiMAX and UWB?
A: Currently WiMAX is being pushed aggressively by Intel and may overtake DSL and cable modems as the last-mile connection, becoming the best solution in the market. However, the unit price of an 802.16 broadband-wireless modem could be more than US$100, whereas the unit price of an ADSL modem is currently only US$20. With cost as the issue, it will be difficult for Intel to have the same success as it did with Centrino. Therefore, in my opinion, WiMAX will likely only have a 5-10% share of a specific niche market.
The UWB standard has the advantage in bandwidth, but is limited in its distance. Like Bluetooth, UWB is intended to be a cable-replacement technology. I would like to add that I am very optimistic about HomePlug technologies in the home powerline networking market.
Q: Could you talk about HomePlug AV development, since you were appointed as the president of the HomePlug Powerline Alliance?
A: The final version of the HomePlug AV standard will be ready by the summer of 2005. At that point, Conexant will launch its first single-chip HomePlug AV product.
Q: Conexant is also one of the chip vendors toying with the idea of the digital home. How does the company see the market maturing?
A: In the digital-home infrastructure, consumer-electronics products are the last to migrate from analog to digital, after global network and enterprise systems have all been upgraded. At the moment, SOHO DSL routers form the core connection to the ISP for WLAN routers, as well as access points for notebooks, wireless IP phones and other networked devices. In fact, data/voice telecom gateways and media/entertainment gateways won’t be integrated as converged media gateway products. DSL routers can be seen as the core for data/voice telecom gateways, while they are also being incorporated into wireless terminal equipment, including WLAN devices, notebooks and wireless IP phones. The key role of the STB will be as a hub for media/entertainment gateways, streaming-video equipment, HomePlug entertainment appliances, flat-panel TVs and Hi-Fi stereos.
Q: Conexant has both data and media product lines. Could you tell us more about the company’s new products?
A: We have rolled out VoIP CPE (customer premises equipment) solutions that can be incorporated into adapters, VoIP routers, IP phones, WLAN handsets and IADs (integrated access devices). As well, we have launched media-adapter solutions that can integrate WLAN and streaming audio and video. After acquiring ViewAhead Technology, we plan to introduce single-chip solutions for multi-functional peripherals (MFPs), with one product integrating a variety of functionality, including that of a printer, fax machine, scanner and photo copier, and offered at low cost.
For Taiwan-based network-equipment makers, I suggest they keep an eye on digital-home products, including VoIP-enabled devices, media adapters, MFPs and IP STBs.
Q: How are operations proceeding in the new design center you recently set up in Taiwan?
A: The Taipei center was inaugurated in August. Its first goal is to target wireless, DSL and dial-up modems and provide service support for software downloads and hardware installation. Staff at the center will increase to 100 in 2005, up from 65 at present.
This interview was translated from Chinese.
Peter Kempf, vice president of marketing,
Wireless and Residential Gateway Access Products, Conexant Systems.
Photo: Daniel Shen, DigiTimes.