By MICHAEL FOREMAN
Ericsson New Zealand has landed a $24 million order for its Home internet Solution (HiS) from Telekomunikacja Polska (Telecom Poland).
The deal comes on top of a $6 million order placed by the Polish carrier last April and pushes the export orders for HiS to over $60 million this
year.
HiS, which was developed by Ericsson's Napier-based research and development facility, has been described as a halfway house between ordinary dial-up connections and broadband services such as Telecom's ADSL (asymmetric digital subscriber line).
HiS consists of a "black box" that connects between a user's PC and an ordinary telephone line that provides a simultaneous internet and telephone connection.
In internet-only mode this gives access at 115Kbits a second or roughly four times the speed of an ordinary dial-up access.
When a telephone call is made the system automatically provides voice bandwidth, shifting the net access to a "fallback" rate of 70Kbits a second.
Like ADSL, HiS requires specialised equipment to be installed at the telephone exchange, which has so far prevented its introduction in New Zealand.
Telecom said earlier this year that it had examined HiS carefully when it was looking at high-speed internet connections a couple of years ago.
"At the time HiS was pretty much unproven and had yet to be deployed. ADSL, on the other hand, while newer, had more of a track record," said a Telecom spokesman, Glen Sowry, adding that ADSL offered up to 20 times the connections speed of HiS.
The HiS system is being offered in trials by Telecom Malaysia. Malaysian users are paying the equivalent of $534 for the HiS "black box" and from $53.40 a month for flat-rate internet access, subject to a maximum of six hours a session.
Other trials are taking place in the Philippines and the Ukraine.
