I scream, you scream... for DSL
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By Daniel Briere and Christine Heckart
11/18:/96
It's nearly 1997. Do you know what your carriers are planning for
Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) deployment? If not, find out. This is a
technology that could save you money and enable new connectivity options
for remote offices into the backbone corporate network and the Internet.
DSL has been likened to ISDN because it promises to deliver high-speed
transmission over standard copper wires. But the faster DSL won't go
through the decade-long delivery cycle that plagued ISDN. At least, we hope
it won't.
Unlike ISDN, DSL is not a protocol - it is a physical layer transport.
So while ISDN users have been plagued with the complexity of the protocol,
Asymmetric DSL (a promising DSL flavor) users will be employing protocols
that are well-defined, such as IP, frame relay or ATM.
And while ISDN has enjoyed moderate success, its 128K bit/sec of
bandwidth represents just four times what users get with analog modems
today. Compare that to ADSL designs that can deliver speeds of 6M bit/sec
(more or less).
But DSL's real trump card may be that it uses frequency division to
carry voice and data over a single physical connection. This eliminates the
need for users to run a second line into their home or business - a key
advantage when the dwindling copper-loop plant is taken into consideration.
Finally, DSL has the advantage of having a large number of major
equipment vendors behind it at an early stage in the game. TeleChoice found
this out when it recently published The TeleChoice xDSL Sourcebook - a
detailed listing of vendors with DSL plans in place. We found that over 80
companies have or will soon have DSL equipment available.
DSL's biggest ob-stacles aren't technical; they're primarily
organizational and political. While most telephone companies are actively
trialing DSL in limited locations, the typical time to market for new
services is 18 months or more.
Users interested in taking advantage of DSL's benefits in the near
term may be helped along by local telecom deregulation. The smaller
providers, such as competitive access providers, may be best positioned to
deliver DSL by taking advantage of the unbundling rule.
And while DSL's future is usually linked to the residential broadband
market, its short-term success will likely be in the business markets as an
access solution for remote LAN interconnect, Net, intranet and other data
application needs.
We encourage you to petition your service provider for DSL-based
services. If you don't know who to call, send an E-mail to
adsl@telechoice.com. We will compile the requests and forward them to the
ADSL Forum, which is tracking demand. Service providers familiar with the
lukewarm acceptance that ISDN received are reluctant to embrace another
local-loop technology. But ADSL is not an ISDN, and it's up to users to let
their providers know these benefits are needed now.
Briere is president and Heckart is director of broadband with
TeleChoice, Inc., a consultancy in Verona, N.J. They can be reached at
dbriere@telechoice.com and checkart@telechoice.com. |
