DSL finally begins to ripen: Talk, trials turn into deployments for some

Though DSL is nowhere near being a mass market technology, supporting technologies and deployments are reaching a new level of maturity. At last week's DSLCon show in San Jose, service providers and vendors lined up behind familiar technologies such as voice over DSL and new standards such as G.shdsl.

With few new technologies surfacing at the conference, perhaps the most notable trends came in the form of old news. Voice over DSL is not a new topic, but more trials and rollouts are giving it the momentum needed to win seats in larger networks.

NorthPoint Communications has been trialing CopperCom's voice-over-DSL equipment in the San Francisco Bay Area. The trial also involves Focal Communications, which will test voice-over-DSL technology with some of its Class 5 switches.

CopperCom competitor Jetstream Communications ran a similar, live voice-over-DSL demonstration at the show with Covad Communications and ICG Communications. Jetstream also reeled in another green field provider, Lightship Telecom, which plans to roll out the technology in the Northeast.

But because of reliability and scalability issues, voice over DSL still has not gotten approval from larger carriers. Those providers have more established brand recognition and take longer to evaluate and explore new technologies, said Stephen Gleave, vice president of marketing for Jetstream.

Even though most of the larger providers planned to offer voice over DSL at the beginning of this year, those dates apparently have been pushed to the end of the year or 2001.

Rhythms NetConnections originally targeted December 1999 for voice-over-DSL deployments, but the provider now hopes to offer it in June or July of this year, said Eric Geis, vice president of national development for Rhythms.

"We will probably see a lot in the third quarter of this year," said Jennifer Stagnaro, vice president of marketing for CopperCom.

G.shdsl surpassed voice over DSL as the hot topic at the show. The new standard for symmetrical high-speed DSL, G.shdsl alleviates some of DSL's current distance limitations (Telephony, April 3, page 80). The standard, which could be completed as early as September, will enable service providers to take symmetrical DSL (SDSL) from 5700 feet at 192 kb/s to 20,000 feet at 2.3 Mb/s beyond the central office (CO).

"All of a sudden, everyone is talking about it," said Keith Atwell, product line manager for loop technologies at Adtran. "There's a lot of talk about it replacing [asymmetrical] DSL, but I don't think that's going to happen," he said, adding that both technologies have a niche in the market.

Infineon Technologies has developed a G.shdsl chip - called Socrates - that Adtran plans to use in its G.shdsl-based equipment, which should be available by the end of the year, Atwell said.

Many equipment providers at DSLCon also unveiled integrated access devices (IADs), hoping to take advantage of the predicted growth of voice-over-DSL revenues. Cahners In-Stat Group believes that number could top $4 million by the end of 2001 (see figure).

Ramp Networks, TollBridge Technologies and Copper Mountain Networks all unveiled IADs that deliver multiple voice lines and high-speed data, knowing the real value of DSL will come when service providers can offer multiple services - including voice, data and video - over various DSL flavors.

Ramp's WebRamp 2000V IAD, developed for the small business market, supports eight to 16 voice lines and provides high-speed Internet access via an Ethernet interface.

"Voice is the killer application for broadband," said Doug Erickson, marketing manager for Ramp. "Just using DSL for Internet access is not going to pay the bills. Bandwidth availability opens up a world of new ideas."

TollBridge is collapsing more functionality into one box by combining its current IAD with an SDSL modem.

"Customers don't want to pay for two boxes to deploy voice over DSL," said Agnes Imregh, vice president of marketing for TollBridge. By combining the two technologies, the TB55 is easier for service providers to install and more cost-effective, she added.

Copper Mountain's CopperRocket SDSL IAD enables eight voice lines and high-speed data over a single copper pair. At the CO, the IAD interoperates with equipment based on GR-303 and media gateway control protocol (MGCP)-based gateways, allowing service providers to leverage their Class 5 switches and move toward next generation switches, said Muni Perzov, product marketing manager for Copper Mountain.

"It works with existing switch architecture deployed by providers, as well as MGCP, which allows for next generation switched packet services," he said.

In a sign of the technology's maturation, the number of service providers focusing their attention on DSL provisioning issues is on the rise.

Now that the technology is aging, "We are seeing the less glamorous side of DSL coming out," said Peter Meade, managing partner of TeleResearch. "We need to take a look at more of the back-office, OSS and nuts-and-bolts types of issues now."

And now that providers have something to provision, reducing the number of truck rolls to make DSL offerings a reality will be key to success. The more often those trucks stay parked in the garage, the more profit margins are sure to increase.

For many competitive local exchange carriers rolling out DSL service, finding a niche and earning substantial profits is just as critical as time to market. While incumbents primarily focus on residential DSL rollouts, the competitive providers increasingly look to sectors such as the small and medium-sized business markets.

Concentric Network, which delivers DSL services to those small and medium-sized businesses, last week revealed it has added 15 more markets to its footprint. The new markets include Albany and Buffalo, N.Y.; Albuquerque, N.M.; Austin, Texas; Colorado Springs, Colo.; Milwaukee; Minneapolis; Norfolk and Richmond, Va.; Phoenix; Pittsburgh; and Providence, R.I. The added markets are the result of central service areas that Concentric's partner, Covad Communications, has turned up.

"This rollout gives us a dramatic increase in footprint," said Brian de Haaff, DSL product manager for Concentric. "We have been working closely with Covad," de Haaff said, noting that Concentric plans to turn up a number of new markets in the next few months. Apparently, Concentric's appetite has not only been whetted by the U.S. market. The provider also said it has begun asymmetrical DSL trials in Europe with BT.

In addition to the Concentric's ramp up, provider Jato Communications, which targets Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities, also is growing its footprint. Jatorevealed last week that it is offering service in Austin and El Paso, Texas.>