DCT-5000 Feels the Burn at AT & T
By JEFF BAUMGARTNER -- Multichannel News, 8/7/2000
Preparing for the launch of its interactive-television product late this year, AT & T Broadband said it is in the process of "burning in" the centerpiece of that effort-the Motorola Broadband Communications Sector "DCT-5000+" advanced digital set-top.
"Whenever AT & T brings something new into their network, they have an established process of fairly rigorous tests," said Motorola BCS' senior director of marketing and systems engineering Mark DePietro.
Due to the complex combination of software and hardware that rests inside the box-a 32-bit 3-D graphics engine, an integrated Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification (DOCSIS) cable modem and a memory cache-concurrent integration is taking place at several locations around the continent, said Jim Wood, vice president of advanced technology at AT & T Broadband.
"For example, we have a lab with Motorola in Pennsylvania working on it, and the folks from Microsoft are working on it in Mountain View [Calif.]," said Wood. "I've also got a systems-integration lab up at our Digital Media Center that's up and running dozens and dozens of boxes."
Sun Microsystems Inc. and Gemstar-TV Guide International Inc., which are also AT & T Broadband ITV software partners, are collaborating with the MSO in separate labs to integrate their respective software into the DCT-5000, Wood added.
The last piece of hardware-software integration-what Wood calls a "true burning in"-involves a piece of software that will clone DCT-2000 functionality inside the higher-grade DCT-5000 box.
That's important, because it will allow AT & T Broadband to deploy the boxes in markets where it hasn't launched ITV. It also ensures that the boxes won't languish in a warehouse, waiting to be deployed.
Integration work is being completed "as stuff is delivered," but Wood said his goal is to complete the burning in by late fall. "As always, there are lots of things that need to be done, but we're on track."
Along with several layers of software, the DCT-5000 houses a number of peripheral ports and hardware devices that will help AT & T Broadband tackle the potentially lucrative world of home networking, which enables bandwidth sharing among Internet-enabled televisions, computers, personal digital assistants and Web tablets.
"In addition to looking into simple things like high-definition passthrough and bringing products into the home, we are going to extend that to home networking and streaming media into the home," Wood said.
