Semi companies lead ADSL test

Electronic News, March 9, 1998 by Will Wade

DALLAS -- Three major forces in the high-speed digital data communication world have announced plans to participate in interoperability testing for asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL) silicon. Texas Instruments, Analog Devices and Alcatel hope to finish joint compatibility tests by the end of the second quarter, and company executives said they expect their efforts, along with similar tests from other vendors, to accelerate deployment of ADSL systems and service.

"In order to ensure rapid deployment of ADSL, semi-conductor manufacturers who provide the core hardware and software technology must take the lead in driving, fully interoperable solutions," said Russ Johnson, VP and GM of ADI's communications division. "This cooperation between Alcatel ADI and TI will enable equipment manufacturers to be sure that their fully rate-adaptive central office and customer premises equipment will be able to seamlessly, communicate anywhere."

The three companies are all working on chips which conform to the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) T1.413 Issue 2 standard for ADSL. Although there are many different DSL formats, with varying speeds and capabilities, this is the only standard for ADSL technology. It promises data transfer rates of up to 6.8 megabits-per-second downstream and 768 kilobits-per-second upstream. This standard has not been completely approved, but the technical details are all but completely ironed out, and final approval is expected later this year.

"This is just what was expected," noted Ken Krechmer, technical editor of the Communications Standards Review newsletter. Mr. Krechmer closely follows the standards process and communications technology. "It would have been more significant if they weren't conducting tests. I think there will be a lot more than those three participating in tests soon," he said.

Mr. Krechmer said the ADSL, standard is quickly becoming widely accepted, and the communications chip makers, system companies and telephone carriers have all shown strong interest in the technology. The ANSI standard will be used as the basis for the Universal ADSL Working Group, the industry consortium working to develop a standard format for an ADSL variant aimed at the home consumer market, commonly called ADSL Lite.

Although standard ADSL can also be used by the home PC user, it requires a phone company technician to install a line splitter at the site. ADSL Lite will not require a splitter, but will deliver slower data rates in the neighborhood of 1.5M.

The lack of a widely-accepted standard has been perhaps the single greatest barrier to mass deployment of ADSL. Telcos have been reluctant to purchase expensive systems without a guarantee that they will work with all other ADSL systems.

TI and ADI both make ADSL chips, while Alcatel makes both chips and systems. Executives from all three companies said that adapting their existing designs to conform with the ANSI standard was not a major technical challenge, and they hope to deliver interoperable products to the market soon after completing their testing.

"Standards-based interoperability is a tremendous market enabler," said Greg Waters, director of TI's network access products organization. "Starting today, customers, equipment manufacturers and services providers can feel confidence in the ubiquitous deployment of standards-based DSL as the high-speed on-ramp to multimedia services. This initiative among the leading silicon providers lays the foundation to achieve interoperability among current and future DSL standards."