Blane
1
BROADBAND CHIPSET MANUFACTURER Centillium Communications has launched a new ADSL chipset that will make the Net fly. The company's new Palladia 210 chipset for ADSL modems can reach speeds of up to 20Mbps.
It will probably take a while to filter down to the average end user but the new chipset points the way that Internet connections are headed. It was only a few years ago that 10Mbps was the speed of a normal LAN. The downside is that telcos will have to install new kit at your local exchange before you can get it.
The new chipset is an all-in-one design with USB, Ethernet and ADSL built onto a chip with a MIPS processor. The processor allows the use of an embedded version of Linux to control the ADSL modem. Depending on the end customer, the chip can be used to make a USB modem or an ADSL Ethernet router.
To give you an idea of the speed, a modem equipped with the 210 would be capable of downloading files at over 2 megabytes per second. That's a whole CD's worth of information in five and a half minutes or an entire DVD in forty minutes. It brings the possibility of real-time streaming of high quality video, something that movie studios are keen on and video rental companies are frightened witless about.
With some telcos slapping limits on how much their users can download each day, we have to wonder how they will cope when this technology goes online. We suspect that the new technology will only be available to selected users even when the exchanges are upgraded and it's bound to be expensive at first. But these things have a way of trickling down to the average customer eventually.
It will probably take a while to filter down to the average end user but the new chipset points the way that Internet connections are headed. It was only a few years ago that 10Mbps was the speed of a normal LAN. The downside is that telcos will have to install new kit at your local exchange before you can get it.
The new chipset is an all-in-one design with USB, Ethernet and ADSL built onto a chip with a MIPS processor. The processor allows the use of an embedded version of Linux to control the ADSL modem. Depending on the end customer, the chip can be used to make a USB modem or an ADSL Ethernet router.
To give you an idea of the speed, a modem equipped with the 210 would be capable of downloading files at over 2 megabytes per second. That's a whole CD's worth of information in five and a half minutes or an entire DVD in forty minutes. It brings the possibility of real-time streaming of high quality video, something that movie studios are keen on and video rental companies are frightened witless about.
With some telcos slapping limits on how much their users can download each day, we have to wonder how they will cope when this technology goes online. We suspect that the new technology will only be available to selected users even when the exchanges are upgraded and it's bound to be expensive at first. But these things have a way of trickling down to the average customer eventually.