Maine LEC tests ADSL over ATM: CommTel tries out Ariel system to deliver data and video

A small local exchange carrier in Maine is conducting an asymmetrical digital subscriber line trial that it hopes will develop into a new business unit while benefiting the Maine business community.

CommTel, the brand name of Winthrop, Maine-based Community Services Communications, is trying out an ADSL-over-asynchronous transfer mode service using Ariel's Horizon system. The service is designed to use ATM's security and flexibility to deliver data and video simultaneously to PCs via standard copper phone lines.

The carrier-which serves about 11,000 access lines in its service territory from Augusta to the Lewiston/Auburn metro area-has planned and deployed its infrastructure with the idea of either overlaying with coaxial cable or using a technology that would allow high-speed, high-bandwidth connectivity, said Mark Blake, president of Community Services Communications.

CommTel has been in talks with numerous equipment vendors to try to deploy an ADSL-over-ATM service, but only Ariel had an ADSL-over-ATM DSL access multiplexer (DSLAM) that was "ready for prime time," Blake said. "To our knowledge, it's the only one that's working. We selected Ariel because they were truly interested in deploying this technology."

Dave Sobin, a vice president of Ariel and head of its Communications Systems Group (which Ariel is in negotiations to sell), explained that the Horizon system delivers the Internet protocol (IP) traffic used to deliver video and data via ATM. That lets carriers offer customers the ability to conduct data networking and video reception tasks simultaneously through separate virtual private circuits (VPCs).

The carrier establishes the VPCs for the customer, and when both circuits-one circuit to a video server and one circuit to a data server-are active, the Horizon DSLAM uses priority queueing to ensure that video signals travel down the last-mile connection first, with data packets slipped into open spots between video signals.

"You wouldn't want to make the world switch to ATM to make this happen," Sobin said. "ATM is a convenient transport mechanism" for IP traffic.

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