DSL FORUM TARGETS UBIQUITOUS BROADBAND, CPE CERTIFICATION

Despite the gains made during the last year in DSL penetration worldwide, broadband carriers have plenty of addressable market left, according to figures released by the DSL Forum last week.

As of June 30, DSL providers accounted for 78 million broadband subscribers worldwide, a significant jump from the 46.7 million reported 12 months ago.

“It's right on what we were expecting,” Tom Starr, president of the DSL Forum and a senior member-technical staff for SBC Communications, said during a press conference. “Over the past 12 months, we're looking at 48% growth, and I'm very happy with that.”

In the U.S., subscriber numbers are up less dramatically with 11.4 million users at the end of the second quarter this year compared with 7.6 million at the same time last year.

However, with 1.1 billion access lines across the globe, the industry still has more than enough market that is not being reached and the forum is starting to promote various technologies that will make DSL ubiquitously available. To that end, the forum released a new white paper in conjunction with last week's Broadband World Forum in Venice, Italy, that covers multiple strategies for pushing DSL to areas where it previously wasn't technically feasible to serve. Among the options: the use of remote DSLAMs, the placement of small multiplexers at the serving area interface, the use of repeaters and the use of reach-extended DSL and DSL2Plus.

“It's really all a lot of techniques for shortening the copper loop,” Starr said.

While not meant to promote any single technology, the forum is trying to get carriers to think ahead to when they must offer triple play services to everyone in their footprint for competitive reasons.

“The white paper was intended to be a compendium on a variety of different ways to skin the cat,” said Jay Fausch, senior director of marketing for Alcatel's Fixed Communications Group and chairman of the DSL Forum's marketing committee. “Our customers are feeling the heat to provide a full triple-play service to everyone.”

In a separate announcement, the forum unveiled a new program under which customer premises equipment (CPE) that goes through interoperability testing in forum-recognized independent testing laboratories will receive an approval logo that vendors can use in retail channels. The program is specifically geared for the European market but should U.S. carriers change their distribution model and push DSL modems through retail channels, a similar program could be set up in the U.S., Fausch said. U.S. cable operators have been offering high-speed data customers the option of buying their modems via retail outlets for several years now. However, U.S. carriers still by and large want to control CPE selection, though some vendors expect that to change in the near future. SBC is allowing customers to connect to some pre-approved retail modems. The DSL Forum tests would allow for further expansion of the program to the U.S., said Wayne Daniel, chief technologist for Siemens Subscriber Networks.

“Part of the issue [in the U.S.] is the number of permutations of CPE and CO equipment,” he said.

Other CPE vendors, though, claim the retail model is flawed because fewer than 20% of cable modem users buy a modem via retail chains. By offering standardized modems at retail, operators also lose the ability to manage them as network elements and hamstring differentiated services, said Gordon Reichard, vice president of marketing for Westell. It's also not economically advantageous for consumers, he added.

“Why would the customer buy your product in a store, if they can get it from you for free or at a heavily subsidized price?”

TOP PENETRATION RATES
(DSL/100 phone lines)

• Asia: South Korea - 28.66
• Europe: Iceland - 18.44
• Latin America: Chile - 6.99
• N. America: Canada - 12.30
• Africa
• Oceania

Source: ITU-4Q 2003