Leader of the pack

GTE's ADSL trials with Microsoft and two universities put the carrier on top GTE is jumping ahead of the Bell regional holding companies by souping up its asymmetrical digital subscriber line trials. Adding 1000 more users and two additional sites, GTE will now control the largest data ADSL trial in more cities than any of the RHCs.

The 1000 users will be added to GTE's existing trial with Microsoft in Redmond, Wash., while 65 new users will log on at Duke University in Durham, N.C., and Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind.

GTE will continue to use equipment from Westell Technologies and Amati in the expanded and new trials with bit rates from 1.5 to 4 Mb/s downstream and 64 to 384 kb/s upstream. However, new trial partners and equipment vendors will be added over the next few months, said Barry Nalls, GTE's assistant vice president of business product management.

Microsoft, the two universities, as well as original trial participants in Dallas/Fort Worth, were chosen for their high-level demands and capabilities.

"You won't find a more complex or more demanding group of users than Microsoft," Nalls said. The trial's higher education aspect adds faculty and administrators with scientific interests, such as running super computers at maximum capacity, and college students, who are "super users" that push the limits of video, audio and graphical capacity on-line, he said.

So far, GTE hasn't run into any major problems, and Nalls estimates that 67% to 75% of its existing lines will be able to handle ADSL without being further enhanced. Through the trials, the company has been learning about back office issues, how to design ADSL networks, and what applications customers want, need and use. Applications have been and will continue to be the driver for GTE's ADSL testing.

"GTE is clearly leading the pack with regard to ADSL. Other providers like U S West and UUNet are focusing on high-bit-rate DSL and symmetrical DSL, but GTE has stayed the ADSL course and probably learned the most," said Kieran Taylor, broadband consultant with TeleChoice. "They're being rather methodical. The expanded trial is an indication that the technology warrants further investigation but that it's not ready for prime time yet."

Focus is important so that DSL does not become a new kind of bit pipe, he said.

Bit pipe-types of technology tend to lose value quickly with only bandwidth as a differentiation, he said, pointing out past problems with ISDN and T-1 lines.

With the 1000 new users, GTE will also begin to test remote monitoring from its network operations center in Irving, Texas, Nalls said.

The new and expanded trials will still be free, but GTE is studying how to price and market ADSL service and is determining which customers want and will pay for which types of service, which range from basic to full redundancy with extra features.

"It's very important you get that part close to right," Nalls said. Choosing Microsoft and now the two universities as partners is good because GTE is probably getting a higher level of feedback than it would from a strictly residential trial, said Taylor.

Still, GTE is keeping quiet on the subject of deployment. The company is considering whether to move to a market trial next or go straight to service rollout, Nalls said.

"There's no clear competition for GTE right now in the area of broadband DSL," Taylor said. "Until there is one, they can move slowly."