Despite its rocky, young history, DSL technology is being presented in new ways to businesses for all communications services, including data, voice and video.
Last week, 11 digital subscriber line suppliers heralded united support for DMT (discrete multitone) modulation for standardizing very-high-bit-rate DSL. The standard, which is interoperable with asynchronous DSL, allows carriers to offer high-quality voice, video and data services over DSL. The 11 vendors agreeing on the standard include Alcatel S.A., L.M. Ericsson Telephone Co., Intel Corp., Texas Instruments Inc. and Nokia Oy.
The de facto standard, capable of delivering 70M bps downstream and more than 50M bps upstream, is expected to create the framework for a multi-DSL infrastructure that will support a wider range of services, including packet telephony and digital video.
Verizon Communications Inc. unveiled a pact with Alcatel for its DSL networking gear to bring the technology to more users. Verizon officials said the New York company is deploying DSL equipment in 1,000 more switching centers and that four-fifths of its users will have access to the technology by years end.
Nokia upgraded its edge routers to allow operators to provide the same VPN (virtual private network) services over multiple access technologies, including DSL. For users, the technology is slated to unify and accelerate service provisioning. “The enterprise customer is no longer tied to one type of access for VPN service,” said Graham Ellis, director of marketing for Nokia Broadband Systems.
The simplification is made possible by Nokias Multiprotocol Label Switching-enabled edge routers, over which encryption can be layered to ensure secure corporate communications, Ellis said. “In the past, in order to provide a frame connection to a customer, you could have had up to five different functional groups,” he said. “If youre able to simplify all that, you have the opportunity to cut a number of steps out of the process.”
Nokia also launched a Remote DSL System, to help carriers extend DSL offerings to hard-to-reach regions, and a new videoconferencing technology that lets business users in remote or home offices with DSL join video calls with a headquarters that has higher-speed access.