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Voice over DSL—Coming soon to a building near you - Technology Information

Communications News, June, 2001

VoDSL--meaning voice over DSL--promises to extract greater benefit from DSL lines by integrating packetized voice telephony services with high-speed data. Key customer targets for VoDSL include the millions of small to midsize businesses that competitive providers claim have historically been underserved by the incumbent telcos.

Those familiar with DSL may recognize the term in-building DSL. Deployment of DSL inside a building using in-building copper pairs vs. using DSL as the last-mile technology connecting a building to a service provider is an appropriate and useful technology for hundreds of thousands of commercial multitenant units (MTUs) in regions where these buildings' tenants cannot be reached with local-loop DSL services.

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VoDSL, expected to be a highly profitable service offering for integrated communications providers (ICPs), stands to benefit end-users with reduced, all-in-one bundled pricing, a single point of contact and simplified billing.

Two generic delivery options exist, plus a third made available by new platforms called integrated concentration devices (ICDs).

Option 1: Deploy VoDSL to each business independently (over local-loop DSL). This most generic approach for deploying VoDSL essentially treats each MTU-based business as a standalone entity. The major advantage is that it follows a familiar model for VoDSL deployment. Drawbacks are tied to well-known DSL reach problems, and ignore the many benefits to be gained by concentrating subscriber (tenant) traffic locally in each MTU.

Option 2: Deploy VoDSL Customer premise equipment (CPE) to each business; concentrate DSL loops in-building. Increasingly attractive to many ICPs, this alternative is for building local exchange carriers (BLECs) and treats each MTU-based business as a standalone entity. It recognizes that MTU-based subscribers are co-located, providing greater deployment flexibility.

Option 3: Deploy an ICD to the MTU; concentrate both DSL and voice CPE in-building. This is a new alternative for MTU-based VoDSL, only available when using an lCD. Like option 2, it recognizes that MTU-based subscribers are co-located. This approach integrates subscriber voice CPE (e.g., phones and key systems) directly into the concentration platform, allowing the ICP greater freedom to offer different subscriber services with one platform.

This approach shares many benefits with option 2, along with several additional advantages unique to the basic architecture of an ICD, including: enhanced QoS controls, meaning low, predictable latency and packet delay variation (jitter) characteristics; multisubscriber VoDSL capability, allowing multiple tenants' phone equipment to plug directly into the lCD for centralized VoDSL IAD functionality; built-in E-911 voice support, which allows connecting multiple tenant IAD E-911 POTS ports into the ICD's integrated voice ports for VoDSL support, even if building power is lost; flexibility that allows use of discrete VoDSL IADs at some tenant premises, while allowing other tenants to share the VoDSL IAD support integrated into the ICD; cost savings, by reusing existing DSL CPE (e.g., SOHO routers) when adding VoDSL on top of data-only DSL services; and provisioning simplicity for multiple subscribers' voice and data services in one platform, adding new capabilities over time via remote management.

An in-building DSL strategy can be an excellent alternative to local-loop DSL, even where subscribers are close enough to be served from central office-based digital subscriber tine access multiplexers. Adding DSL-based packet voice services in MTUs presents the first real QoS test for in-building DSL concentrators. Concentration products designed primarily for MTU-based data services will be the weakest link in the multiservice access chain. Only platforms based on true multiservice architectures will succeed as the foundations for toll-quality voice, broadcast-quality video and other QoS-intensive services in the MTU.

www.avail-networks.com Circle 254 for more information from Avail

Technology Industry

Voice over DSL—Coming soon to a building near you - Technology Information

Communications News, June, 2001

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