History in the making, LEC offers HDSL service in Alaska >BY Denise Pappalardo, East Coast Bureau Chief

ATU Telecommunications, a local exchange carrier in Anchorage, Alaska, is the first in the U.S. to offer high-bit-rate digital subscriber line service as part of its transparent local area network service.

Few others offer DSL service of any kind, said Mike Smith, lead analyst for network services at DataPro, a Delran, N.J.-based consultancy.

ATU is extending its Anchorage transparent LAN service (ATLAS), which runs over a fiber network. The extension, ATLAS Lite, interconnects the fiber network with the copper network. ATU is using PairGain Technologies' HDSL Megabit modems for the interconnection. This extends ATLAS' reach at less cost to consumers.

The venture also marks the first time PairGain products are being used with a tariffed HDSL service, as opposed to a trial, said PairGain President Howard Flagg.

"This is a great prototype for other service providers," he said. "The customer is not bothered with the underlying technology. Customers simply order a point-to-point LAN service."

ATU is selling LAN services, not HDSL technology, said Mike Carpenter, applications engineer at ATU.

That's the right way to go, Smith said. "The work that PairGain is doing with ATU is the first effort we'll see to gauge customer interest in DSL services," he said, adding that other carriers should follow suit.