For Phone Companies Wiring The Web, A Surprising Speed Bump
Thread- In today's WSJ front page B section, on air via CNBC, and online at:
dowjones.wsj.com ...there is a good primer on DSL technology. I thought I would post it for those that want to learn more about the DSL last mile solution.
Although I don't agree with everything in the article, I found a few lines accurate. Such as, "But competition forced the Bells' hands. When cable companies jumped in with aggressive high-speed offerings, the Bells' dusted off DSL, a 15-year-old technology that had been sitting on the shelf for years, and hastily repackaged it as a new technology that would light a fire under consumers."
The biggest problem with the article I found is their theme, incompatibility between copper and fiber. It's not a problem. It can be solved by a remote CO. Or an NGDLC. As a matter of fact, it's the only way to get multi-megbit services to lot's of customers further away from their COs. A technology SBC plans on rolling out in a big way via Project Pronto( It's really what most Last Mile investors envision as a solution to the telcos competing effectively with the cablco's HFC(Hybrid coaxial-fiber) coaxial pipe. For more details see: Message 11663331
And I did find the reference to Alcatel's involvement with the remote terminal accurate. "Alcatel, the French telecom-gear manufacturer, is currently in field trials with a "remote terminal," a kind of adapter that is supposed to let DSL and fiber interconnect. Once installed in neighborhoods, the remote terminals would act as mini "central offices," extending the reach of DSL while creating a path for fiber users. I couldn't find my post detailing Alcatel's involvement. But anyway, here's a link to the key Project Pronto vendors. I must have put some notes about remote COs elsewhere: Message 11796491
But they didn't mention Advanced Fiber Communication's(sym:AFCI) involvement with Project Pronto. From what I understand, AFCI may offer SBC an NGDLC solution too, but for more rural areas. More Details at: Message 11738204
Hope this helps new Last Mile investors understand the technology better. -MikeM(From Florida)
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For Phone Companies Wiring The Web, A Surprising Speed Bump
By LESLIE CAULEY- Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Phone companies are counting on digital subscriber-line technology, known as DSL, to be their ticket to the world of high-speed Internet access. They've also been betting on another technology, fiber optics, to upgrade the old Bell networks, at a cost of billions of dollars.
Now the Bells face a difficult quandary: The two technologies are the equivalent of oil and water. They just don't mix.
The incompatibility presents a major hurdle for the Bells as they try to outmaneuver the cable-TV industry for position in the next phase of the online revolution: Internet service that is super-fast and "always on," just like a TV signal. Hoping to build and own the infrastructure that will one day bring high-speed Web access to America, the phone and cable industries are running a high-stakes race for households and market share, a technological land grab.
First, though, the Bells have to resolve a more pressing problem. DSL was designed to be delivered on the Bells' century-old copper networks, not on the new fiber-optic networks. The old copper networks gave each customer a "dedicated" wire (actually, a pair of them) to carry the electrical signal from the phone company's central office to the kitchen phone and back. Fiber networks, on the other hand, carry a signal that moves as pulses of light over hair-thin glass tubes along ever-changing routes, selecting the most efficient path available depending on volume and other factors.
Right now, the universe of high-speed Web service is minuscule. According to a report by Sanford C. Bernstein and McKinsey & Co., there were about 228,000 residential DSL customers at the end of 1999. By comparison, there were 1.62 million customers for the cable companies' high-speed Web access, delivered using powerful modems and upgraded cable lines.
Tom Wolzien, a cable analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein, gives the cable industry a two-year lead over the Bells. The high-speed market "is cable's to lose," he says. The Bernstein-McKinsey report says many of high-speed's best potential customers live in areas already serviced by upgraded cable lines but not easily reached by DSL.
Cable-modem Internet service is far from perfect. It is a "shared" service, so users log on to the same fat pipe. They may experience slowdowns in transmission during peak usage times, just as the water pressure in an apartment building can drop if everyone takes showers at once.
Some phone-industry experts say because the high-speed cable lines are "shared," they also may be more susceptible to security breaches. The cable industry says its high-speed service is no more vulnerable to hackers than competitors', properly managed networks don't slow down and network kinks will be ironed out in time.
The phone companies have known for a long time about the DSL-fiber clash. Still, it's difficult to see how they could have avoided the current predicament. Fiber-optic lines, with almost unlimited capacity, have been indispensable in enabling the Bell networks to handle millions of new cellular phones, fax machines and second telephone lines. The fiber lines also are easier and cheaper to maintain. But competition forced the Bells' hands. When cable companies jumped in with aggressive high-speed offerings, the Bells' dusted off DSL, a 15-year-old technology that had been sitting on the shelf for years, and hastily repackaged it as a new technology that would light a fire under consumers.
Right now, getting DSL can be an enormous headache. It can be downright impossible in many new communities that the Bell companies have wired with fiber lines. Even senior Bell execs haven't been able to get around the problem. Sol Trujillo, chairman of U S West Inc., the Denver Bell, discovered last year that he wasn't eligible for DSL in his new Cherry Hills home because the neighborhood was served by fiber lines.
The remedy? U S West ran a monster T-1 line, the kind of data line favored by big businesses, to the chairman's newly constructed home. To this day, he still can't get DSL.
"None of us has a solution to get DSL to the end" of the fiber lines, says Amy McIntosh, president and chief executive of Bell Atlantic Corp.'s data unit. Still, Ms. McIntosh says, she is confident the problem will be solved soon. "I'll take our hand of cards versus the cable companies' any day."
Even when it has copper lines to run on, DSL has other quirks. Network experts say the DSL lines shouldn't be located with other data lines in the same "sheaths," the big bundles that are buried in the ground. That's because DSL lines can pick up electronic interference from other lines, and also create it.
Before installing DSL, the Bells typically dispatch a crew to check sheaths for the presence of other data lines and remove or relocate them if necessary. These service calls, called "truck rolls," are expensive, and most Bells try to avoid them.
Then there is the distance problem. Currently, the farthest a DSL signal can travel without degradation is about 15,000 feet, or a little less than three miles. That means people have to live within 15,000 feet of a Bell central office, where DSL signals originate, to be eligible for the service. But even then, if you have fiber lines you are out of luck. U S West's Mr. Trujillo, for example, lives only 9,600 feet from a central office.
There are other problems, depending on how the local network is laid out. Some lines snake around underground so much they can easily eat up 15,000 feet long before they reach houses that would seem to meet the DSL distance requirement.
DSL performance also can be affected by such things as the thickness of the copper wire it is riding on. Thin wires don't handle DSL as well as thick ones, which are pricier. The problem is, some Bells, aiming to cut down on costs, have deployed miles upon miles of thinner-gauge copper over the years. As a result, customers who live in those areas may have to make do with slower DSL connections for a long time. The Bells could just replace the lines with thicker copper wiring, of course, but that would be expensive.
And then there are the obstacles many consumers have created inadvertently for themselves, by doing their own "inside wiring." For more than a decade, customers have been permitted to attend to the telephone wiring inside their homes. The all-too-predictable result in many homes is a mish-mash of wiring schemes, many of which aren't compatible with DSL either.
John Goldman, a spokesman for BellSouth Corp., says DSL installers sometimes have to make several trips to clean up the mess. "It can be a real nightmare," he says.
Clearing the hurdles won't be cheap. SBC Communications Inc., the big San Antonio Bell, recently committed $6 billion to overhaul its network to better accommodate DSL. As part of the effort, SBC says, it is working with manufacturers to come up with solutions to DSL's problems.
One consequence of the DSL-fiber clash is that Bells with the highest-quality networks are among the least prepared to offer DSL. Because of aggressive upgrading over the years, Bell Atlantic and BellSouth have top-notch networks that are crammed with new fiber lines. Both acknowledge the issue and say they are working with vendors to come up with answers.
Equipment makers have been working for years to resolve the problems. Alcatel, the French telecom-gear manufacturer, is currently in field trials with a "remote terminal," a kind of adapter that is supposed to let DSL and fiber interconnect. Once installed in neighborhoods, the remote terminals would act as mini "central offices," extending the reach of DSL while creating a path for fiber users.
More than four years in the making, the remote units, crammed with miniaturized components, have their own battery backup power -- necessary in the event of a power outage, because they are powered by local utilities. They range in price from about $1,000 to more than $50,000 and can handle 24 to 2,000 lines each. The smallest is the size of a big ice cooler; the biggest, the size of a small Volkswagen bus.
Alcatel Vice President Paul Segre says a commercial-grade model should be available in about six weeks. SBC, anxious to push ahead, began using test units in January and says they work fine. Bell Atlantic, another customer, won't deploy the terminals until field tests are finished around midyear, Bell Atlantic figures. |
