The home gateway/networking-access product has been one key segment that has been seeing action. Among the fairly well known players in this space is the US-based Ishoni Networks. In line with its slogan, `broadband for everyone', the company has formed up plans to launch its Ishoni Broadband Engine (iBE) -- a gateway product for small offices and homes -- in Q1 2001.

The product, currently in alpha stage was positioned to storm into the growing home/office broadband gateway market, according to its managing director (India operations) Mr TS Satish.

In a discussion with The Financial Express, Mr Satish was upbeat about the product hitting the market at the right time. What's more, he adds, Ishoni's gateway-on-a-chip technology integrates voice, data and security on a single chip, besides making the product extremely affordable.

The gateway is currently being developed to function over DSL, cable and wireless Internet access and Ishoni has worked on completely developing the chip, the platform and the software.

Ishoni currently has 200 people between its offices in California and Bangalore. While the silicon part and the platform of the product was developed in California, the software and DSP capabilities were put together at its facility in Bangalore.

``With DSL coming in, our focus is currently heavy on this access technology. While in an old generation network infrastructure, the network will consist of a combination of heterogeneous boxes and applications (routers, VPN's, firewalls, etc), in the iBE environment, Ishoni's chip will integrate all the fuctionalities into a single box,'' Mr Satish said.To do some number crunching in this segment, research figures indicate that by 2003, broadband device deployment will hit the 50 million mark (See chart). According to Mr Satish, this represents the numbers Ishoni was aiming to hammer into.

As per the company's product pricing structure, the gateway (manufactured through its OEM partners) will be in the $500 price range for the office segment, while for the home segment it is likely to be slotted at $200.Ishoni's calculation of the cost for setting up the network/security infrastructure in the conventional heterogeneous small office environment (routers, VPN's, firewall, dedicated voice/data lines, etc) amounted to $4800 plus $1400 towards monthly maintenance, he said.

With the iBE environment, the costs drop dramatically to $500 (for the gateway) and $570 towards the monthly maintenance of the DSL access line, system management, etc, he added. The company is expecting to see revenues on its product starting next year.

Ishoni Networks is drawing up plans for its third round of funding. The funds, likely to be over $20 million, are expected to be in by early next year. The company so far has raised a total of $30 million from Bessemer Venture Partners, Information Technology Ventures, INVESCO Private Capital, Lucent Venture Partners, Western Technologies and angels. The company has also formed working alliances with four key OEM partners for its Ishoni Broadband Engine product. The OEM partners (which have significant presence in the US) will launch the product across the US initially while Asia and Europe will follow.