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There may be a glimmer of hope for the DSL-disadvantaged, or those millions of residents and businesses that reside more than 18,000 feet, from their phone company's central office. Remote terminal installations, as well as a new standard that promises to push DSL beyond current limits, are just a couple of the tricks that the industry is counting on to break down the DSL barriers.
These new developments couldn't come at a more critical juncture for the DSL industry, as many competitive providers find themselves strapped for cash and fighting for market share.
Incumbent carrier SBC Communications has been the most vocal about its plans to work around DSL's distance limitations. As part of the company's $6 billion Project Pronto, SBC is installing a fiber connection from the central office to neighborhood broadband gateways, which are similar to remote terminals, and then connecting to each customer home via copper wire. The impetus behind this plan is to expand SBC's DSL footprint. The company says that with current DSL limitations it can reach about 50 percent of its customer base, but with the neighborhood gateways, its footprint will encompass about 80 percent of its customer base.
According to SBC spokesperson Shawn Dainas, outfitting the gateways with DSL puts most customers within 12,000 feet of the neighborhood gateway, giving SBC the ability to offer DSL speeds of 1.5 megabits per second downstream and 6 Mbps upstream.
The company currently is serving customers using neighborhood broadband gateways outfitted with Alcatel gear in San Diego and Escondido, Calif., and Austin, Texas. But the big push in gateway construction is planned for next year; by year-end 2002 the company plans to have 18,000 gateways ready for DSL delivery.
Projects like SBC's costly Pronto are exactly the type of business models most DSL vendors are dreaming about. According to Bruce Miller, senior product manager for Lucent's MultiDSL group, the remote terminal market is enormous. This fall, the company debuted a scaled-down version of its Stinger DSLAM specifically for installation in remote terminals. The Stinger RT is smaller and environmentally hardened so it can be placed into existing street cabinets.
Like Lucent, Nokia also has a hardened solution geared toward remote terminals. Ross Taylor, account director for Nokia's Broadband Systems Group, says the company has received interest from both competitive and incumbent carriers for the company's D50 product line. But one of the most innovative users of Nokia's gear is Westminster, Colo.-based Tess Communications. The little-known communications company quietly is working with homebuilders and developers in Colorado and Arizona to deliver voice, video and high-speed data to new communities that may be underserved by incumbent carriers.
But remote terminal installations do present some difficulties for the operators, which first must get right of way approval from cities for access to the neighborhood boxes. SBC has received ROW approval for 70 percent of the remote terminals in its footprint. But that statistic is ruffling some feathers in the DSL world because it leaves little room for competitive carriers to install gear in remote terminals in SBC's territory. To circumvent the situation, SBC says it will provide wholesale service through the gateway to competitive providers.
For DSL providers catering to the business user, in other words those providing symmetric DSL service, a new standard holds the most promise for delivering DSL beyond 18,000 feet. Single-line high bit rate DSL, also known as SHDSL or G.SHDSL, is a global standard set for adoption by the International Telecommunications Union in February 2001.
According to experts, carriers implementing this new standard will add 25 percent to 35 percent to the reach of a twisted pair loop with varying bit rates. For example, businesses closer to the central office could get symmetrical data rates of 2.3 Mbps, while a business 20,000 feet from the central office would get about 192 kilobits per second.
G.SHDSL is gaining support from equipment vendors and many see it as the definitive long-reach technology for DSL. According to Enzo Signore, director of marketing for Cisco Systems' DSL business unit, although some DSL operators are trialing G.SHDSL, most equipment providers are waiting for the standard to be ratified before they make their gear available.
For most vendors, G.SHDSL will mean more business, particularly in Europe where many operators have delayed their DSL deployment until they could outfit their central offices with G.SHDSL gear.
Whether it's remote terminals, G.SHDSL, or some other technology, DSL vendors say that they are getting closer to delivering a full range of options for operators that want to provide DSL throughout their entire territories. "We've got it right now, we've got what it takes to take DSL to the masses," Lucent's Miller says.
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