DSL gets marching orders: simplify, interoperate
By Loring Wirbel
SAN FRANCISCO --The ADSL Forum Summit convened in a pressure cooker here this month as system vendors and semiconductor suppliers heard calls to simplify digital-subscriber-line (DSL) installations, cut component costs and ensure interoperability across platforms. With cable modems turning up the competitive heat on xDSL at last month's Western Show, xDSL-modem vendors realize that they must deliver the goods--and that carriers must deliver the services.
Without wide-scale interoperability trials and an aggressive campaign to educate carriers about the various DSL options, DSL technology could go the way of ISDN, warned Daniel Briere, president of market-analysis firm TeleChoice Inc. (Verona, N.J.). On the compatibility front, Paradyne Corp. (Largo, Fla.) and AG Communication Systems Inc. (Phoenix) detailed the interoperability of their ADSL equipment in a technical paper at the summit and proposed that other OEMs follow the AG/Paradyne model.
Frank Wiener, vice president of DSL systems at Paradyne, said it's up to individual companies to drive common interface approaches for proposal to the official standards bodies.
To simplify residential DSL installations, Globespan Semiconductor Inc. (Red Bank, N.J.)--which recently changed its name from Globespan Technologies Inc. to reflect its xDSL chip-set focus--proffered a way to remove the expensive plain-old telephone service (POTS) splitter equipment from customer sites. The method uses a commonly available, $5 discrete filter module, which Globespan calls a Micro Data Filter, as an interface to an asymmetric-DSL (ADSL) modem. NetSpeed Inc. (Austin, Texas) announced at the summit that it will offer the Globespan technology as a system-level add-on in its new EZ-DSL kit.
Globespan is stressing that what it calls Consumer-installable DSL, or CiDSL, is not a competitor to the Consumer DSL proposed by Rockwell Semiconductor Systems; rather, it's an interim solution for removing POTS splitters while CDSL and other proposals are being considered by the American National Standards Institute's G.LITE working group.
"I think all of us in the industry have the same ultimate objective: Get as many DSL customers signed up in as many regions as quickly as possible," said Armando Geday, chief executive of Globespan. "For that to happen, you need to make it easy to install for the service provider, easy to use for the end customer and easy to purchase on a cost-of-ownership basis."
The beauty of using external compensation filters, Geday said, is that existing ADSL and rate-adaptive DSL modems in the field can be upgraded with an external component to allow analog phone use without a POTS splitter in the design. The technology is not specific to a line code or to any Globespan proprietary technology, he said, but only to "a certain required robustness level in the modem itself."
The new generation of Globespan xDSL chip sets can achieve up to 7 Mbits/second downstream out to 22,000 feet, in either symmetric or asymmetric configurations. Several filter modules produced by third parties meet the Globespan specs, and Geday said the company will work to provide the filters directly or via a reference sale to both OEMs and service providers.
The first customer to provide the technology to end users and carriers is NetSpeed, which is adding the EZ-DSL enhancements to its SpeedRunner router, PCIRunner modem, and LoopRunner DSL-access multiplexer (DSLAM) products. By March, NetSpeed expects to be shipping $199 Peripheral Component Interconnect cards. That would place ADSL at virtual price parity with V.PCM and even V.34 analog-modem prices.
Robert Locklear, director of technology at NetSpeed, emphasized consumer pricing at the summit, attributing the PCI board's low cost to a combination of volume production and reduced component costs. But from the carriers' perspective, the move to CiDSL filtering technology may be the biggest plus.
"We talk to virtually all the carriers, and what they've been telling us is that a major impediment to widespread DSL provisioning is the cost of rolling a truck to the customer site to install the splitter on the side of the house," Locklear said. "The beauty of this solution is that you're not limited to 1-Mbit/s speeds, and you don't need a new line code to make it work."
Interoperability angle
OEMs that concentrate on business markets for DSL say that proving end-to-end interoperability for DSL equipment from different vendors is as important as price.
Paradyne and AG will assist customers in assuring that Paradyne's HotWire products will work with AG's Atium GateWay systems. Mark Emery, general manager for AG Communications Systems, said his company and Paradyne hadn't previously worked together on formal programs but that they recognized the importance of interoperability specs in driving business use of DSL.
Wiener of Paradyne added that "interoperability isn't just an enabler; it's critical [if the market is] to achieve its full potential."
Executives from both companies were reluctant to speak about future joint work between Paradyne and AG, though Wiener suggested that joint sales and marketing efforts could be announced soon.
Also possibly in the cards is joint work on emerging xDSL standards outside ADSL and RADSL, such as HDSL-2 or G.LITE. |
