SBC tabs BroadJump for DSL provisioning

SBC Communications will use BroadJump's self-installation software for its 4,000 daily DSL installations.

"We're focusing on providing our customers easy ways to get DSL set up. Self-install is one way," said an SBC spokesman. We just announced enhanced plug-and-play, where they get a desktop at their doorstep, and that's even easier. That is truly plug-and-play.”

SBC has licensed BroadJump's Virtual Truck Installer software--re-branded as SBC Express--to "enhance" its self-installation efforts, the spokesman said.

For BroadJump, this marks "DSL broadband, the big time," said president/CEO Kip McClanahan.

"SBC has decided to install this in all territories simultaneously. That's really a big deal," said McClanahan. "That includes Ameritech, Nevada Bell, Pacific Bell. Southern New England and Southwestern Bell divisions."

It also includes a growing base of more than 767,000 DSL subs as reported at the end of last year. It expands BroadJump's self-installation customer base to include AT&T Broadband, Time Warner, Road Runner and Sprint.

"We're now in a position where our customers represent more than 50% of the broadband market," McClanahan said.

Technologically, there are different challenges between cable deployments, which are standardized under DOCSIS, and DSL "but they're really no better and no worse in any particular case,” McClanahan said. “Whether it's DSL or cable or wireless, the (BroadJump) products are all capable of knowing that and extracting that but working with any of those technologies."