To: Duke who wrote (586 ) 11/21/1997 9:20:00 PM From: Maverick Respond to of 1629
DSL delay dogs UUNET By Denise Pappalardo Network World, 11/24/97 Fairfax, Va. ''It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.'' -- A Tale of Two Cities If you're looking for national digital subscriber line (DSL) Internet access service, this classic first line may ring true. UUNET Technologies promised coverage in over 90 cities by the end of this year, but this has been much more a dream than a reality. UUNET's Preferred Access 128, an ISDN DSL (IDSL) 128K bit/sec service, today is available only in Boston, the New York metropolitan area and 23 cities in California. Why is it ready only in a handful of areas when UUNET was supposed to be nearing national deployment by year-end? The incumbent local carriers are the ones gumming up the works, claimed Alan Taffel, vice president of marketing and business development at the Fairfax, Va.-based company's current needs or budget. ''Our costs are higher be-cause we've had to deploy ISDN or dedicated T-1s where we would have opted for DSL,'' said Sim Wright, coordinator of in-formation technology at the Spartanburg, S.C. company. ''DSL would provide cost savings and increased bandwidth.'' Users like BMW will be waiting even longer if local exchange carriers (LEC) such as SBC Communications, Inc. continue to make it difficult to offer DSL. SBC recently declared it will not let any of its unbundled local loop lines to be used to support asymmetric DSL (ADSL) services, a company spokesman said. This would apply to any CLEC or ISP. UUNET, however, is offering a different flavor of DSL. UUNET's Preferred Access 128 service is based on Ascend Communications, Inc. IDSL equipment. IDSL creates a dedicated 128K bit/sec connection over copper wiring to UUNET's Internet backbone.