Come fly with DSL: Technology race showcased at Networld+Interop in Vegas

Vendors hawking all flavors of digital subscriber line were long on demonstrations and alliances and short on customer deals at last week's Networld+Interop in Las Vegas, but the saturation of DSL in the market is proof that the technology has taken root.

The central core of DSL activity was the ADSL Forum's Hot Spot, where vendors gathered to highlight interoperability and demonstrate applications such as fast Internet, audio/video streaming and videoconferencing.

Many vendors are beginning to see more action as network operators begin DSL rollouts. Still, standardization issues remain, and backers must focus on reality rather than hype, said one vendor.

"By the time you look at interoperability, spectral compatibility and globalization, it's a complicated situation," said Marc Zionts, CEO of Westell. "We've made the transformation from evangelizing the technology to concentrating on hardware and real carrier deployments."

Westell demonstrated its discrete multitone asymmetrical DSL system in its SuperVision DSL access multiplexer (DSLAM). The DSLAM, which also supports the carrierless amplitude/phase modulation scheme, is compatible with digital loop carrier systems from Lucent Technologies and DSC Communications Corp., Zionts said.

Another DSL backer said the new carrier realm will be the real testing ground."The [competitive local exchange carriers] are going to prove the market for this technology," said Ron Young, vice president of marketing at Diamond Lane Communications. "[The Bell companies] are fast followers, but they're not pioneers."

Diamond Lane featured its recently introduced Speedlink symmetrical DSL line card and highlighted its partnerships with DSL equipment suppliers such as Cabletron, Escalate Networks, NEC and RedBack Networks.

DSL newcomer Interspeed, a subsidiary of Brooktrout Technology, is focusing on Internet service providers that want to sell the solution to small and medium-sized businesses without the cost and complication of a lot of network equipment. The vendor introduced its System 1000 and System 500 single carrier-class DSL solutions, which package DSL switching, routing, administrative capabilities and access into a single source, said Stephen Ide, president of Interspeed.

Other DSL highlights:

Fujitsu demonstrated its Speedport DSL access multiplexers, developed in partnership with Orckit. Alcatel introduced a DSLAM and an equipment interoperability agreement with 3Com.

NEC demonstrated interoperability of its DataWave DSL solutions with RedBack's SMS 100 subscriber management system.

Lucent introduced its WildWire IP ADSL access system and a DSL chipset. Rockwell Semiconductor likewise introduced a chipset.