DSL pedal to the metal....
Corporations expected to speed technology's acceptance
By John Rendleman, PC Week Online
September 28, 1998
Despite the limited scope of DSL services, several initiatives rolling out later this year will improve availability of the high-speed technology. And it appears business customers, not consumers, will lead the initial charge.
While most of the early hype surrounding digital subscriber line focused on its suitability as a fast alternative for consumers accessing the Internet, about 93 percent of the approximately 250,000 DSL lines sold this year are expected to be installed for business use, according to a recent survey of providers conducted by TeleChoice Inc., of Boston.
"We expect to see in the neighborhood of 700 central offices deployed [with DSL] by the end of the year," thereby providing limited DSL services in most major U.S. cities, said Paula Reinman, an analyst with TeleChoice.
Corporations are straining for the lower-cost, high-bandwidth services DSL promises. For telecommuters remotely accessing LANs or the Internet, ISDN is currently the best option, but it is relatively expensive and notoriously difficult to manage. The choices for branch offices linking back to corporate headquarters are equally limited: expensive frame relay or private lines.
"We're having a problem because a lot of our power users are running out of steam with ISDN," said Jeffrey Fritz, principal network engineer at West Virginia University, in Morgantown. "There's just not enough bandwidth with ISDN for them."
Stringing cable
Of the two contenders for high-speed corporate access--cable and DSL--the latter appears to have the early edge. The reasons are twofold: the lack of cable lines to corporate sites and vendors' rapid integration of DSL modules in remote access servers.
New services are beginning to debut as well. IBM Global Services this week will provide a sneak preview of a new asymmetric DSL offering for customers of its managed remote access service in the San Francisco Bay area.
The new service, which will be centered in San Jose, Calif., will augment IBM's existing ISDN and dial-up services. The service will start in December at three speeds: 384K bps, 768K bps and 1.5M bps. Prices will range from $50 to $225 per month.
IBM is looking to expand the service to other regions, said officials in Somers, N.Y.
Separately, SBC Communications Inc. last week announced an agreement with Dell Computer Corp. under which Dell Dimension PCs will ship with integrated DSL modems for customers in SBC's service region, said officials of the San Antonio-based Regional Bell Operating Company.
At the same time, US West Inc.'s Interprise Networking unit is working to make DSL more feasible with substantial price reductions and a cut in ordering time from 40 minutes to under 5 minutes for its MegaBit DSL service, rolling out in its 14-state territory. The initiatives will begin by year's end, said officials in Denver.
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