By: T. Bruce Tober                 No 5 - 1999	Page:
	Dr William Webb, technical marketing manager for Motorola UK, was describing what he sees as one of the biggest problems facing the high tech world today. He was addressing some 50 delegates at the first plenary session of the Third Annual Access Technology Conference in London, this week. Everyone is negatively affected by this problem he told FastLane. Some more than others. Speaking specifically of access technology, Webb noted that in the not too distant past it was easy to get access to the consumer, all the provider had to do was lay some copper down. "There was no choice, and therefore there was no confusion, no complexity.     "Now, what we're seeing is a new technology coming along almost every year." And rather than a good thing, as we're constantly told that choice is, "the problem with this is that as the new technologies appear, the old technologies don't go away. We still have the full gamut of xDSL, cable modems, Wireless Local Loops (WLL) etc. And none of these has been shown not to work or not to be economical." This just makes things more complex, more confusing, not just for the consumer, but the providers, manufacturers, even the pundits. "Making a decision about which is best is very difficult and is becoming harder and harder."