Published October 15, 1997
Faster is better, and no speed would be fast enough for Internet users. ADSL, Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line, promises a 4000% increase in data transmission speed through the Internet, now being field tested.
Using a new modem over existing telephone wires, ADSL is comparable to fiberoptics but less expensive and uses existing copper telephone wires to carry voice, data, and video.
In Europe, and other countries, ADSL is posed to be widely available commercially by late 1998. British Telecom, Deutsche Telekom, Telecom Italia, and Telia all are joining a worldwide trend.
The ADSL Forum planning group met recently in Brussels, Belgium. The 300 member forum includes telephone companies, Internet Service Providers, computer executives, and industry analysts. The growth of ADSL in Europe is matched by United States, Asia and Australia.
Numerous North America phone companies are testing: Bell Canada, BT, GTE, Nynex, and US West.
Bell Atlantic is now trial testing a DSL (Digital Subscriber Line) 250 customer market in Virginia, charging each $60 per month. Users can receive (download) data at 1,500,000 bits per second, and send at 64,000 bps. The fastest modems today over the same telephone lines switch at only 33,600 bps. Even faster speeds than these are technically possible.
Canadian telephone company, SaskTel, is offering ADSL to customers in Saskatchewan for $50 a month for unlimited Net access, with a one-time $72 installation fee. Simultaneous phone conversations and Net connections over a single copper phone line are possible. ADSL will enhance multimedia and teleconferencing worldwide.
@Home, an alliance of Tele-Communications Inc., Cox, Comcast, and Time Warner, are committed to high-speed Internet access throughout the U.S. InterAccess from Chicago is offering limited ADSL for the Internet within a three-mile downtown radius.
ADSL, is faster than the ISDN, Integrated Services Digital Network, speed of only 128,000 bps. ADSL is considerably easier to sell, install, configure, and maintain.
The worldwide hunger for “more, faster,” is not yet fully recognized. Many competitive technologies have distracted investors. Revenues of $1.5B by 2001 in the United States and $2.9B worldwide are expected in this new market, according to a recent study by the Pelorus Group.
ADSL comes in many varieties like Discrete Multitone Technology, DMT or Carrierless Amplitude Phase (CAP) modulation. It’s more alphabet soup to describe proprietary hair-splitting. Basically the new approach is to modulate tones instead of switching them. It’s technically very challenging. The improvement is comparable to the jump from a precision railroad watch to an atomic clock.
Developed by U.S. Robotics (USR), a subsidiary of 3Com, ADSL products are targeted first to cellphone networks that have already implemented ATM, Asynchronous Transfer Mode. USR said business and home users will benefit from this advance. USR and French Telecommunications firm CS Telecom are conducting trials.
CAIS Internet said it would offer high-speed Net access over phone lines in the Washington, D.C., area. It will expand to include San Francisco, Chicago, and New York during the next 15 months.
Motorola Semiconductor and Sourcecom are designing software and equipment for ADSL high-speed Internet connections. ADSL equipment from different manufacturers needs to work together. Customization without interconnection dysfunction a the design goal.
Need for faster transmissions of data is understandable. Certainly modem dial-in connections to the Internet are frustratingly slow compared to computer-to-computer interconnection called Ethernet. Still, real-time television is far superior to anything on the Net so far. This is changing.
Fiberoptic cable is being installed all across America and elsewhere in the world. For the long haul, it’s use is secure. But for the so called, “last mile,” fiber is a technology that is “too early, and too late.”
Mudd Engineering from Bozeman has a proposal before the City of Livingston to wire the entire business and residential districts with fiber to the curb. If approved, this project will be immensely expensive. Connecting to the fiber will also be despairingly prohibitive for each user in equipment and fees. Thus it’s too early for fiber in this way.
The advent of ADSL over existing telephone wires makes fiber to the curb technology too late for individuals and small businesses to directly use.
Once thought that humans could not survive traveling at speeds in excess of 50mph, we stretch ever higher limits because it’s beneficial. Now is a fascinating age to be alive.