Copper Mountain extends its reach

A new integrated digital subscriber line offering from Copper Mountain can operate at basic ISDN speeds (64 to 128 kb/s) and reach up to 36,000 feet from the central office with one repeater over copper.

The product also enables a fiber-fed digital loop carrier up to 10 miles from the CO to deliver integrated DSL service (see figure).

The solution includes a 24-port IDSL line card for the CopperEdge 200 DSL access multiplexer (DSLAM) and an IDSL modem, dubbed the Copper Rocket 201. Customers already using ISDN can convert their existing customer premises equipment to accommodate IDSL.

IDSL runs over existing ISDN infrastructure and is often cheaper for end users than ISDN because IDSL is a flat-rate service, said John Reister, Copper Mountain's product marketing director.

"Now as the [DSL] market is developing, people are screaming for it," he said.

The Copper Edge 200 is designed to support multiple DSL offerings, said Reister. The eight-card DSLAM can be configured with a mix of IDSL and symmetrical DSL cards.

Copper Mountain's IDSL modems are a bit expensive, but because many end users will be converting ISDN setups to IDSL, that probably won't hurt the company's IDSL offering, said Ray Keneipp, principal carrier infrastructure analyst at Current Analysis.

"[Copper Mountain] has the highest [line card] density and the lowest price of any DSLAM on the market," he said.