Digital Subscriber Lines Moving into Central New York

CNY Business Journal (1996+), Nov 26, 1999 by Dickinson, Casey J

Though the "Information Superhighway" has been traveling through many homes

and offices for awhile, consumers have been less than satisfied with the thoroughfare's low speed limits. Cable modems have helped open a diamond lane for many, but others are still awaiting another technology moving into the region: Digital Subscriber Lines (DSL).

DSL service uses existing telephone

lines to provide high-speed Internet

access. The telephone company

installs DSL equipment at its nearest

Central Office (CO) and at the user's

home. The equipment expands the

technical capabilities of common

telephone wires known as "twisted copper

pairs" by transmitting digital data at a

higher frequency than analog voice

transmissions. The connection is

"always on" and doesn't require the

user to dial in to a server. 0

DSL technology also allows telephone companies to slow the demand for additional lines, because DSL does not affect voice transmissions traveling over the same wire. Some telephone companies are using blocks of numbers so rapidly for new computer and fax lines that new area codes have begun to multiply across the country.

There are several different varieties of DSL service. The most common difference among the products is in the quantity of data that can travel in each direction between the user and the Internet.

Asymmetrical DSL (ADSL), the most common type of consumer DSL product, has different data capabilities in each direction on the telephone line. The "upstream" or user end of the line typically sends data at a slower rate than does the computer receiving files coming "downstream" from the Internet. The rationale for the differing data speeds is that most Internet users receive more information from the Internet than they send out.

Businesses and those working from home who send large amounts of data will more likely opt for a Symmetrical DSL (SDSL) that offers the same datatransfer speed no matter in which direction the flow is moving.

Monthly DSL pricing structures range from under $50 per month for consumer versions to more than $200 per month for the fastest business connections. The monthly price for a DSL connection is typically higher than for a cable connection. DSL consumers, however, have the ability to choose an Internet service provider, while cable users must go through the cablecompany service.

Data-transfer speeds on DSL are approximately 100 times faster than standard 56-kilobytes-per-second dial-up modems but not as fast as cablemodem service such as Time Warner's Road Runner. Cable modem speeds, however, depend on the number of users connected to the system simultaneously. As more users send files over a cable connection, the connection's speed slows because bandwidth is shared.

One of the major limitations of DSL is the length of telephone line over which the technology can operate. Customers more than 20,000 feet from their Central Office cannot use DSL.

In the battle for customers, DSL advocates tout the technology's dedicated lines versus the shared network of cable-modem systems. DSL users have constant bandwidth rather than a shared line.

"Cable modems are essentially an LAN (local area network) up on telephone poles," says Joan Rasmussen, spokesperson for Bell Atlantic.

Bell Atlantic is slowly working to bring DSL to its 2,300 Central Offices. The telephone giant currently offers DSL service in the Philadelphia, New York City, New Jersey, Washington, Baltimore, and Boston metropolitan

areas. The company has added DSL capability to nearly 700 of its Central Offices and will complete 1,000 by March 2000. It began its deployment in October 1998. Rasmussen says Central New York may get DSL by the end of the year. (Bell Atlantic has a feature on the company's Web site whereby users can enter their phone number to see if DSL is available in their area.)

Rasmussen says other companies are able to move faster with DSL offers because Bell Atlantic has such a large territory to equip. "We're doing a very aggressive deployment across a large territory," she says.

As Bell Atlantic works on its network, smaller companies such as Pennsylvania's Commonwealth Telephone Enterprises, Inc. (CTE), are already offering service in limited areas of the region. CTE launched its Jack Flash DSL service in Binghamton earlier this month, and other companies are doing the same throughout the region.

Jonathan Leepson, product manager for Jack Flash DSL, says the technology has many consumers happily hooked on speed.

"The more you use it," he says, "the

more you need it."