DSL price drops hit full speed

If a lack of digital subscriber line market share is a problem, could lowering the cost per line do the trick? One Nevada DSL vendor, Pulsecom, appears to be taking that approach with its new symmetrical DSL line card, which costs $300 per line.

Pulsecom's WavePacer SDSL-768 lets access providers drop the line card in with existing equipment, thus reducing time-to-market and keeping deployment costs low.

The fact that the product works with existing equipment is attractive, said Laurie Falconer, a senior analyst with TeleChoice.

The market is currently very price-sensitive and making traditionally high-cost DSL cheaper will effectively heighten interest and make it more attractive to providers, said Aaron Sipper, product manager for Pulsecom. Because the SDSL-768 is based on a known platform, it makes the provisioning process easier as well, added Sipper. This would essentially eliminate truck rolls.

However, Falconer said she was skeptical about how a truck roll would be avoided with the deployment.

Pulsecom has also teamed up with customer premises equipment vendor Xpeed.

Pulsecom's SDSL-768 runs with Xpeed's 300 SDSL PCI Adapter, to generate the $300 per line cost, Sipper said.

Pulsecom should come out ahead, but somehow, they don't have much market share, Falconer said. With such incredible financing, they might be able to reel in more equipment contracts, she added.

Pulsecom said Alaska Telephone Utilities, an incumbent local exchange carrier, would start product trials this month.