Telcordia develops new loop test for ISPs

Telcordia Technologies today is launching a DSL loop qualification service that it claims offers 98% accuracy of line quality help ISPs accurately target dial-up customers and move them to faster, more lucrative DSL services.

Telcordia’s service uses the end user’s analog modem and the ISP’s server as test devices, capturing data about electrical characteristics of the loop during the end-user’s normal dial-up connection and processing the information through a Telcordia algorithm that calculates the line’s ability to support DSL and the data rates that line can achieve.

“We find not just a ‘yes-no’ but a maximum data rate that the line can achieve,” said Bobbi Rentko, general manager of Telcordia’s Network Access Engineering Services. “We’re proven to be 98% accurate.”

The ISP can use the service not only to pre-qualify a subscriber, but also to sell services based on attainable speeds, avoiding over- or under-selling DSL speeds.

The service is being trialed with “one of the top 5 dial-up ISPs in the country” that wants to “become one of the top DSL ISPs,” Rentko said.