Canadians take to RADSL

CADVision, a Canadian Internet service provider, is bringing rate adaptive digital subscriber line technology to its customers. Using Paradyne's HotWire 5100 carrierless amplitude/phase modulated modem, the Calgary-based ISP plans to establish dedicated service to customers immediately.

The maximum speed of the service is 2.5 Mb/s with flat-rate pricing at $51, including a $7.35 customer premises modem fee rental.

This is the first commercial use of Paradyne's RADSL system announced in September, although CADVision and other carriers have been testing it. Geoffrey Shmigelsky, president of CADVision, said he has been using Paradyne's asymmetrical DSL technology at home and enjoys the fast throughput of 1.6 Mb/s.

Once CADVision's RADSL service begins this month, the company plans to offer a cheaper RADSL service in January by using a dial-up version, with about 10 client modems to every three server modems, Shmigelsky said. That service will be priced at $28.65, which will include the $7.35 modem rental.

Because Calgary occupies about 300 square miles and DSL service requires short travel distances of up to three miles, CADVision has to set up an atypical network. The customer's modem will still be connected to a second modem in the local central office. However, to connect all the network access points to the point of presence in downtown Calgary, CADVision has constructed a Sonet ring to link the sites together to maintain the high bandwidth.

About 20% of Calgary now is on the ring, but Shmigelsky expects that number to increase to 80% in the next year.

Frank Wiener, vice president of the DSL products division at Paradyne, believes RADSL technology will overtake the currently popular asymmetrical version.

"Ever since GlobeSpan Technologies [RADSL chip maker and sister company of Paradyne] announced rate adaptive [technology] several months ago, the telcos have been asking for it. So we prioritized RADSL in our development and got the product out quickly. The benefits are compelling enough that they'd like to go with it right out of the gate," he said.

Wiener is confident that service providers won't have a problem shifting from ADSL to RADSL because the technology is fundamentally the same.