DSL’s simplicity gives telcos advantage over cable modems, industry veteran says

The advent of plug and play equipment for high-speed Internet access could be a major moneymaker for telcos, according to a leading American telecom expert. Douglas Hill, senior product marketing manager, broadband access solutions for Paradyne Corp of Largo FL, says consumer demand for high-speed access isn't a problem. Rather, the challenge for companies is to effectively market the service while keeping cost margins in check. Speaking to delegates attending the recent DSLcon 2000 conference in Toronto, Hill suggested that DSL will replace the need for truck rolls, a significant cost factor when conventional dial-up or cable hookups are required. He predicts that within the next two years—"I wish it were sooner"—DSL will be so ubiquitous that subscribers will be able to buy modems commercially and install the devices by themselves. "When you've got a technology like that, that means you can use the existing customer premise wire," Hill told Network Letter. "You can send the customer a modem that plugs in, all he has to do is hook up four wires. He can really do a plug and play scenario. He doesn't have to worry about house wiring, and he doesn't have to worry about the condition of the local loop coming to his house. So it makes a huge difference in the economics of deploying DSL." Hill credits the advent of optimized digital subscriber lines with advancing the market. In the early days of DSL, POTS (plain old telephone service) splitters needed to be installed outside buildings. Telcos were running a new wire from the splitters to the DSL modem. But this required a technician to be on site, driving up costs. Paradyne has found its multiple virtual line product bypasses the need for truck runs. In trials, the product also worked well under adverse conditions, he adds. Before too long, Hill predicts that employers will begin picking up the DSL tab for employees that want to work more from their homes. Already some American states are mandating telework in an effort to reduce smog emissions. The DSL system should be popular with telcos because it permits them to sell more services to the same client with very little effort. "It could be that the customer subscribes to 256k, and all of a sudden they realize they'd like to have a little more bandwidth," Hill postulates. "So they can double it to 512k through just entering some key strokes on a network management system." DSL versus cable modems The Paradyne executive seems to be putting his faith in DSL over cable modems, which he claims often require more on site support. As an example, he tells the story of a colleague in the company's management team who wanted a cable modem installed in his home office. His wife called to inform him that the cableco was preparing to trench around their backyard. The man called the company and demanded the wiring be run through the house attic. Confusion over where the runs should go resulted in a grand total of four truck rolls before the cable modem was installed. In another case, he says one of Paradyne's marketing people received an invitation for free installation of a cable modem service. "It took them three trips and they blew up the operating system of our employee's PC," says Hill. Hill admits DSL is not foolproof. Shortly after the Toronto conference, subscribers to GTE Corp's service in California were left stranded. Problems with the telco's router caused connectivity outages in the Los Angeles area. Similar problems were reported further up the Pacific coast, in the state of Washington. It took several hours before service could be reestablished. The occasional setbacks don't faze Hill. "It's pretty wild some of the things that are happening on the Internet," he says. "But again, all of them are bandwidth intensive applications. That dictates that you need more bandwidth to do it. A 288k modem (or) 546k modem isn't going to hack it. You're going to need more bandwidth and of course, that's where DSL really shines."

DSL’s simplicity gives telcos advantage over cable modems, industry veteran says

News | May 23, 2000

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