3Com reveals secret weapon in 56K modem war

3Com Corp. last week cleared up two mysteries surrounding 56K bit/sec modems, but at the same time created a couple more.

The company announced it holds exclusive rights to intellectual property essential to setting a 56K bit/sec modem standard and revealed how much it would charge other vendors to license that technology.

But this news raised new questions about whether the fees will affect other vendors' product plans to the point that a 56K bit/sec modem standard would be delayed.

There also are questions about how the fees will affect the street price of modems once a standard is in place.

The technology 3Com said it holds the rights to previously was believed by industry participants and observers to be held by Brent Townshend, president of Townshend Computer Tools of Menlo Park, Calif. (NW, Aug. 25, page 1). But 3Com last week said it acquired exclusive rights to Townshend's intellectual property in 1995 and has paid him millions of dollars for it to date.

3Com will collect licensing fees for Townshend on that technology once a standard is issued and if he is awarded a patent for the technology at the heart of that standard. The fees? Licensees will be charged $1.25 per client modem and $9 per server modem.

Concern over who will have to pay how much to whom for the right to make standard 56K bit/sec modems heated up earlier this summer when word of Townshend's patent claim emerged.

This concern has interfered with work of an international committee trying to set specifications designed to let all 56K bit/sec modems talk to each other.

The International Telecommunication Union's (ITU) work continues this week in Oregon, where members will meet to try settling on a draft standard. But committee members said a standard probably will not be finalized until about a year from now.

One factor in the delay is the wrangling about intellectual property that has to go on outside the ITU before it can act.

Currently, there are two camps of modem makers whose products cannot speak to each other: K56Flex modems backed by Lucent Technologies, Inc. and x2 modems backed by 3Com.

In response to 3Com's announcement last week, Lu-cent said it already holds three 56K bit/sec modem patents and doubts the validity of 3Com's and Townshend's claims to underlying 56K bit/sec technology.

Meanwhile, users wanting to upgrade to the faster dial-up technology are still faced with a dilemma: which of the rival modem factions to buy into.

Larry Fox, network manager for Wright State University in Ohio, said he will forge ahead and install K56Flex modem technology for dial-up access to the school's network. But he realizes that may exclude some of his end users that have already bought x2-based modems. "They're on their own. They really are," Fox said.

Townshend said his license fee is reasonable and he hopes it will not stand in the way of standards progress. @