A sputtering takeoff

Unplugging your car before you drive to work every day instead of filling it up with costly and environmentally unfriendly gasoline sounds like a great idea, but mass-market appeal is still years away. The same parallel can be drawn in the voice over DSL market.

While VoDSL has been rolled out by a handful of providers, it, too, appears to be hitting repeated speed bumps on its path to deployment.

Since the technology emerged in 1999 it has been talked about, tested and been “near deployment” for so long that it should have reached mass deployment status long ago. Whether it has been the victim of technology issues, an industry shakedown or its own failed business concept, VoDSL seems to have slipped into the “what should have been” category.

This week, Broadview Networks, a New York-based competitive local exchange carrier (CLEC), will reveal its turn-up of the service in New York and plans to deploy it into other markets including Massachusetts, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Like the few other deployments of VoDSL, Broadview Networks is targeting small and medium-sized business customers for the service.

And also like other carriers, Broadview initially had problems.

“We started trials in March of 2000 and found the technology was a ‘sunny day’ technology,” said Ken Shulman, chief technology officer for Broadview, who noted that when something did go wrong, the problems weren't necessarily easy to fix.

“The software and hardware didn't have the full redundancy and fault protection,” he said.

In December of last year, VoDSL gateway vendor CopperCom made the needed upgrades to the hardware and software, Shulman said. Broadview is using CopperCom's Gateway and Polycom's NetEngine integrated access devices (IADs) in its rollout.

“We tested the hell out of it, and the system performed the way it was supposed to. [Our tests] proved the technology was sound and solid,” Shulman said.

Broadview did things such as simulate card failures, break T-1 connections and overload the equipment with traffic. “We were really impressed with the gateway under those conditions,” Shulman said.

“It is really ready for prime time,” said Ron Nash, vice president of marketing and product management for CopperCom, adding that the Broadview deployment marks the first announcement of VoDSL general availability by a “lead CLEC.”

But considering the changes that have hit the CLEC market over the last year, claims that the technology is finally ready for deployment may be too late. CopperCom recently moved all of the company's management to Boca Raton, Fla., to center its operations at the Florida headquarters of DTI, with which it merged. The Santa Clara, Calif., location, is still open and houses some of the company's R&D activities. That move, though, caused the departure of Chief Marketing Officer Jennifer Stagnaro.

Meanwhile, Jetstream's Vice President of Marketing Stephen Gleave is leaving Jetstream, and layoffs are rumored to be coming for the company.

“Initially it was the technology issues [that hurt VoDSL] a year to a year and a half ago, but once those got resolved, the market started to fall apart,” said Claudia Bacco, executive vice president of TeleChoice. “Service providers focused on selling [their] backbone and getting DSL out.”

And although TeleChoice projected that 100,000 VoDSL lines would be deployed this year and 500,000 in 2002, Bacco said the readjusted numbers are almost too low to publish (see figure).

“They are under 10,000, and we would be surprised to see more than 20,000 by year-end,” she said.

VoDSL still fits the regional CLEC model best, according to Bacco, who is supportive of Broadview's rollout.

Incumbent local exchange carriers and interexchange carriers are doing trials, but their deployments will likely be in areas of copper exhaust and out-of-region. The technology likely will not be used in residential deployments until the price point for IADs reaches a sub-$300 range that is acceptable by consumers.

“I have heard AT&T is about to [roll out],” Bacco said. “And SBC appears close with out-of-region and copper exhaust,” she said.