A day at the DSL races

DSLnetworks is furthering its lead in the race to roll out DSL. The company is adding service in 15 new markets, doubling its national presence.

The company is putting together the offering through various relationships with competitive local exchange carriers and RBOCs such as Covad Communications, North-Point Communications, Network Access Solution, Rhythms Net-Connections and SBC Communications. In contrast, Qwest Communications currently offers service in 13 markets through its relationships with Covad and Rhythms.

"We effectively doubled the offering Qwest has," said Brad Connors, CEO of DSLnetworks. The company's network was built exclusively for DSL, whereas other networks may have been adapted to allow DSL or may be sharing the connections with other services, he said.

"Qwest is a little distracted right now by the merger with U S West," said Laurie Falconer, DSL analyst at TeleChoice.

Unlike the Qwest offering, which is aimed at end users and businesses, DSLnetworks is targeting enterprise customers and plans to generate about 40% of its revenue from wholesale relationships with ISPs and applications service providers (ASPs).

"We do a lot of wholesale business with ISPs, network integrators and ASPs that come to us for a nationwide DSL solution that they can repackage and sell on their own," Connors said.

"DSLnetworks plans to forward inquiries from small and medium-sized businesses to its channel partners so that it can focus on the larger enterprise customers. As a result, DSLnetworks will not be seen as a competitor but a component in the overall solution, Connors said.