Archive for March, 2008

Comcast HD Quality Reduction: Details, Screenshots - AVS Forum

Comcast increased the compression of their HDTV in order to fit more channels into a fixed frequency space. Turns out one user decided to qualitativiely and quantitatively look at the difference. This is a nightmare marketing scenario for Comcast.

Channel News - Bandwidth Pricing Market 2008

Interesting pricing stats on bandwidth. Trans-Pacific/Atlantic pricing up 600% in one year. New York to Washington 10Gb/s pricing -4%. 10GbE is 4x the price of 1 GigE from Miami to New York.

The Future of the NPU Market - Part 1

Tthere are parts of the NPU market that will do well and others that will not. The edge of the network, with its burgeoning application growth, provides a fertile cradle for the NPU model while the core network is so harsh an environment that even the best managed companies face long odds of generating superior investment returns. Let’s examine why that is.

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Tables Turn Quickly on Chinese Developers - WSJ.com

Chinese property markets are rolling over too. Those without WSJ.com subscription see here.

Barron?s Online : Communications Equipment: Goldman Turns Cautious

Title of article is a bit off - upgrades Cisco and downgrades Juniper & Starent

Motorola insider tells all about the fall of a technology icon - Engadget

Incredible and shocking letter to the CEO of Motorola from an employee fed up with the lack of core business knowledge evidenced by the previous and existing CEO.

Online social networks | Everywhere and nowhere | Economist.com

"Social networking will become a ubiquitous feature of online life. That does not mean it is a business". Bingo - the Economist drives a stake through the heart of LinkedIn, Facebook, etc.

A week in Tibet | Trashing the Beijing Road | Economist.com

Fantastic 1st person account from the only Western journalist in Tibet. Lucky journo happened to be in Lhasa when the uprising began. Pulitzer material.

VZ's FTTH project is using VDSL to service the biggest apartment building in Manhattan

Live by the Boom, Die the Boom

Emcore was skewered this week by a blog post highlighting the questionable nature of some of it’s solar contracts, and the skittish solar money ran for the exits.

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Huawei & Bain Bail on $2.2B 3Com Deal

The real reason? Perhaps Bain could no longer syndicate the debt needed to close the deal.

ADVA Q407

We summarize ADVA’s quarterly call and shed light on the issues surrounding a decline in revenue from channel partners as well as the threats they face in 2008.

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Lightwave - Report: Business fiber reach expanding only slightly

Fiber penetration now extends to 15.3% of U.S. commercial buildings with 20 or more employees, up from 10.2% in 2003.

YouTube - Boston Dynamics Big Dog

Robotics is reaching truly amazing levels of sophistication. Video of agile 235lb robot with 340lb payload. Incredible.

Whistleblower exposes insider trading program at JP Morgan - Wikileaks

Arcane SEC rule allows insiders to essentially hedge future trading transactions. According to document LVLT and OCPI execs participated. Full alleged JPMorgan .pdf is accessible in above link.

Citron Research shines some daylight on Emcore?s solar business.

Emcore's public market valuation is driven by solar at this point. If Emcore hangs itself with the solar business it would put another optical component supplier in a weak position, potentially driving consolidation.

Editorial discussing why Comcast and other companies can survive long term without wireless assets. I don't agree with the conclusion, but it is skillfully made and worth a read.

FTTH market grows 42% in 2007

Dittberneer: GE-PON share of the overall market declined to 67% from 82% in 2006 and is projected to drop to 54% in 2008. GPON expected to grow from 7% to 38% share in 2008. (I think this is optimistic given VZ is still shipping B-PON in March ‘08)

Communications: Most cell sites have only one or two T1/E1 links, or less

Cellular backhaul is going to explode.

The Big Picture | ‘Remain Calm! All Is Well!’

Excellent advice for investors: Be wary of management guidance.