Vendors fight to set modem standard

Chipmakers Rockwell and Lucent have teamed up for a battle to the death with modem manufacturer US Robotics to establish the standard for the next generation of high-speed modems.

Both sides are racing to market with competing, but incompatible, standards for 56Kbps modems.

US Robotics will ship the first of its next-generation x2 modems to the UK before the end of the month. The 56Kbps modems built around chips from Rockwell and Lucent to the K56 standard will ship before the end of March.

But the modems will not communicate with each other at full tilt. If a modem on one standard is used to dial into an Internet service provider or to corporate headquarters where there are modems on the other standard, communications will take place at only 33.6Kbps.

Mike Valiant, product marketing manager at US Robotics, said: 'There will only be one standard at the end of the day - even if there are two implementations at present. There's an interesting few months ahead.'

The International Telecoms Union, Telecoms is not expected to ratify a 56Kbps standard until the middle of 1998. Valiant expects a battle in the marketplace to establish a de facto standard before then, making the Telecoms decision academic.

Lucent has adopted the same standard as Rockwell, which already supplies chips to hardware manufacturers such as Hayes and Boca Research.

Rockwell claims its customers already supply 70% of the world's client-side modems, and 60% of central-site modems worldwide.

US Robotics claims an 80% share of UK Internet and online service providers' hardware. It names Pipex, Netcom and CompuServe as clients.

Modems and ports from US Robotics can be reprogrammed with software to suit whatever standard emerges, and existing US Robotics 33.6Kbps hardware can be upgraded to 56Kbps in this way.

It is expected it will also be possible to change Rockwell and Lucent-based modems via a hardware replacement.