G.SHDSL Coming Into Gear Market
By Evan Blackwell
from the June 18, 2001 issue of Broadband Week
The momentum behind SHDSL showed in a variety of new DSL-oriented product areas at SUPERCOMM. Groomed as the eventual replacement for symmetric digital subscriber line as the high-speed product of choice for business customers, Single-pair High-speed DSL, or SHDSL, has become a hot technology platform since it was ratified as a standard by the ITU earlier in the spring.
The goodwill toward SHDSL has grown, even though many service providers already have invested heavily in SDSL. That might slow short-term SHDSL deployments, but the long-range benefits of a standards-based DSL flavor that helps extend reach beyond 20,000 feet from the central office could be too good to ignore. At least that's the feeling that G.SHDSL gear vendors are trying to foster.
"There's major benefit for service providers in the ability to deploy ADSL and SHDSL from the same platform," says Everett Brooks, director of market development at ADTRAN and chairman of the DSL Forum's SHDSL working group.
ADTRAN, a local loop access equipment company, partnered up with voice over broadband (VoB) gear developer Jetstream Communications to unveil a new VoDSL product based on SHDSL. The joint solution includes ADTRAN's Total Access 608 IAD, which supports SHDSL, and Jetstream's CPX-100 voice service platform.
Cisco Systems unveiled a lineup of business-class G.SHDSL products including the 828 router for small offices and telecommuters; the SOHO 78 router for SOHO customers; the IAD2400 series of integrated access devices with G.SHDSL; and a line of G.SHDSL WAN interface cards for its existing 1700, 2600 and 3600 lines of multiservice access routers.
Initial service provider customers include U.S.-based NTELOs, plus bbned in the Netherlands and Intraconnect in Greece.
On the SHDSL chip front, Infineon Technologies introduced the new Socrates 4 transceiver. The chipset combines four complete SHDSL channels, analog and digital, on a single device.
Symmetricom continued its efforts to expand its broadband access portfolio of products by introducing a SHDSL-compatible solution this month. After first gaining positive buzz for its GoLong DSL loop extender late last year, Symmetricom now is rolling out a product called GoWide. The new product is an IAD combining up to eight SHDSL copper lines to create a single circuit with data rates up to 15 megabits per second. The product will be marketed toward ICPs serving the small and medium-sized business customers who are starting to outgrow their current bandwidth capability.
"We're trying to address the T-chasm. It's for service providers who have outgrown a T-1, but who can't afford the expense of a T-3," says Barry Dropping, Symmetricom's director of engineering. "Eventually, this product will be right in a sweet spot. We see SHDSL as the next platform of choice for businesses."
Other DSL-oriented product announcements underscored how some major players see that market as an immediate growth area, despite the stumbles in the competitive service provider sector. Intel Corp., for example, launched its AnyPoint DSL Gateway 4200 aimed at the consumer market. The box has an integrated DSL modem plus self-configuration software catering to service providers' imperative to make customer self-installation their primary mode of provisioning.
Intel is in field trials of the gateway with service providers and expects them to begin offering it commercially by the third or fourth quarter.
The chipmaker, underscoring its desire to expand the communications element of its silicon portfolio, also introduced its 8010 DSL Router for small and medium-sized businesses and telecommuters, based on its IXP-220 network processor. Software for the router enables such functionality as multi-user virtual private networking, firewall and Quality of Service.
Samsung Electronics was touting its SMT-F300 digital set-top box for streaming media over copper lines via DSL. The product, a cable modem version of which was to be shown at last week's National Cable and Telecommunications Association show in Chicago, is aimed at vertical markets such as homebuilders, hospitality businesses and MDUs. The box includes hardware such as a hard drive for personal video recording and runs EnReach Technology's EnReachTV4 middleware enabling PVR features, Web browsing, e-mail and interactive applications.
Another DSL-oriented customer premise aimed at vertical market customers was Samsung's Anyweb WSP-200 device combining a phone with a screen for viewing Web pages, mail or applications. The phone has an Ethernet port for connectivity to a DSL, ISDN or cable modem.
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