Alcatel :: Info

Alcatel General Information

A chipset manufacturer which does--or used to (see the 15 April 2000 news)--provide Reference Design & Evaluation Board DSL + ADSL modems for the trade. Modems were provided for the public (via Telcos & OEMs) under the SpeedTouch trademark.

On June 7, 2001 a Memorandum of Understanding was signed between Alcatel and Thomson Multimedia for the transfer of Alcatel’s DSL modem manufacture and retail sales to Thomson. Essentially, Alcatel was going to concentrate upon DSL multiplexers (DSLAM) and network infrastructure (52% market share in 2001) whilst Thomson would seek to expand the client-modem market.

In Jan 2000 modems could only be acquired via an ISP. At the current moment (Apr 2005) whilst this is still the most likely way to get such a modem, they can be bought from 3rd-party suppliers. The SpeedTouch USB modems are currently the favourite for supply from UK ISPs (Aug 2008 update: that has changed dramatically in 3 years!).

Drivers, manuals and documentation were made available by Alcatel on the speedtouch.com web-site, and this has been taken over and expanded by Thomson. Rather weirdly, they also appear to maintain a total clone of the same site at speedtouchdsl.com. An even better resource for UK + Ireland DSL-users is at speedtouch.co.uk, which also maintains a resource of archived drivers + firmware and does not expect any registration. This latter site appears to have strong (un-acknowledged) links to Net Lynk Ltd.. All Web sites are full of the usual script & graphics, but easily navigated. The same cannot be said for the Thomson site at thomson.net (avoid).

February 2010 update: on Tuesday, 26 January 2010 Thomson shareholders voted to change the name of the group from “Thomson” to “Technicolor” (good grief). Thomson had spent the early part of the previous 10 years buying up various companies--including, in 2001, Technicolor, the originator of the brightly-hued film stock of the 1950’s & 60’s--and loading itself up with massive quantities of debt in the process. In more recent times--at the bottom of the market--it has sought to divest itself of some of those companies, taking financial hits in the process. No doubt this name change makes sense for a multi-media company, but is perfectly bizarre for an electronics manufacturing company. It will be interesting to see whether this ship continues to float.

Copyright Statement

Compilation, original writings & design Copyright ©2002 - 2013 Modem-Help, Ltd.
All trademarks respected as the property of their respective owners.
Full Copyright + Disclaimer statement