Subject: Telcos show off ADSL--9/15/97
Date: 15 Sep 1997 18:58:31 EDT
From: PHILAD88
Message-id: <19970915225801.SAA20089@ladder02.news.aol.com>
Telcos show off ADSL--9/15/97
By Joanne Taaffe
IDG News Service
The International Telecommunications Union declared itself a friend of the Internet
when it kicked off its Telecom Interactive show here in Geneva last week. To prove it,
Telcos are looking to asymmetric digital subscriber lines.
Walk around the semi-empty aisles on the exhibition floor, and one acronym that crops
up again and again is ADSL - and not only on the stands of ADSL vendors such as
Alcatel SA, Paragain or Paradyne. Operators including France Telecom, Telecom
Italia, and Telecom Malaysia are all showing off the potential of the technology here at
the show.
ADSL is just one member of the xDSL family, a technology that boosts the speeds at
which data travels from the operator's switch to the user's home or office across
regular copper wires.
ADSL, which can transmit data at speeds of up to 8M bit/sec downstream, is not the
fastest manifestation of xDSL. Another form of xDSL operators talked about at the
show, VDSL, can transmit data at 51M bit/sec downstream. But in order to reach its
maximum speed limit without picking up noise interference en route, VDSL has to run
across copper wire of only 200 meters in length, compared to 2 kilometers for ADSL.
With both forms of xDSL, the longer the copper wire gets, the slower the transmission
speed becomes.
This restricts VDSL to densely populated urban areas, where the distance between the
operator's switch and the consumer's ADSL modem tends to be shorter. And VDSL
costs more, which means many operators are sticking to trials of ADSL, which also
got the thumbs up for ease of installation.
Even VDSL vendors are not holding out much hope for sales of the technology any
time soon.
"VDSL is for the future," said an Alcatel spokesman.
France Telecom is currently conducting ADSL trials in the region of Brittany and plans
to introduce the technology to residential users in several dozen French towns over the
next five years.
France is particularly rich ground for ADSL because of the high quality of the copper
network there, according to the company's ADSL project manager. Over 60% of
copper lines in France are capable of transmitting data to the home at speeds of 2M
bit/sec. The fact that France Telecom controls only part of the French cable network is
an added incentive to try out ADSL, since it will offer France Telecom the means to
offer broadband connection to the mass market without having to install fibre networks
to the home.
And ASDL has one big advantage; it operates at a higher frequency than a standard
phone call, which leaves the customer's phone line free - unlike ISDN, the French
Telecom manager said.
Telecom Italia is also ploughing money into ADSL and VDSL research through the
research unit Italtel SpA, which it jointly owns with Siemens. Italtel also said that,
although Telecom Italia is planning trials for ADSL, VDSL will not come into its own
for at least another three years, once telcos have gained experience with the less
financially and technically daunting ADSL.
Finland Telecom's enthusiasm for ADSL, however, was much more diluted. The
Finnish operator argued that the introduction of the technology poses questions of
network management to which ADSL vendors have found only partial answers. Tests
in Finland Telecom's laboratories also revealed unsatisfactory levels of noise
interference.
But Finland Telecom admitted it has good reason to be less than gung-ho about
installing ADSL. The liberalization of the Finnish telecoms market has left the former
state company operating the local copper loop in the least profitable areas of the
country.
Swiss Telecom is trying out high-bit-rate DSL (HDSL) for video on demand. As for
ADSL, a spokesman for the operator said he had been surprised by customers at
Telecom Interactive, who have been clamoring for it - making the carrier think much
more seriously about the technology.
"Switzerland is a very densely populated country, so installing ADSL will not be
problematic," said one spokesman.
France Telecom, along with other operators, acknowledged that the technology is still
relatively expensive. However there is strong hope that prices will fall once the
technology spreads beyond the trial stage - which currently involve fewer than 20,000
end customers worldwide, according to the France Telecom.
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