ADSL2+, Longer Reach Products Arrive

The bandwidth and reach of DSL just keep on growing. The arrival of products based on ADSL2+ — which can deliver downstream bandwidth of up to 24mbps and upstream bandwidth of up to 2mbps — is one development enabling the growth of DSL in terms of bandwidth. This new brand of DSL is expected to be one way for telcos to deliver bandwidth-intensive video services.

At SUPERCOMM earlier this summer, Lucent Technologies Inc., Net to Net Technologies Inc., Occam Networks and Pannaway Technologies Inc. were among the vendors showing ADSL2+ solutions.

Matthew Byrd, vice president of marketing for Net to Net, says his company’s ADSL2+ products are currently shipping. “It’s just coming to market, so we’re in the ‘show me’ phase now,” says Byrd of Net to Net, which sells IP-based DSL solutions.

Pannaway also was showing its ADSL2+ products, which are already on the market. Kevin Brown, vice president of marketing for Pannaway, says the company is “flying by” its goals to deliver triple play solutions to the telcos.

Pannaway’s newest offerings are its Broadband Access Switch and Residential Gateway NID for IPbased delivery of digitized voice, video and data services over great distances using copper. “Our competitors deal with legacy providers, so their DLCs are still ATM-based,” Brown says. “That’s where we’re different, and we’re brought in for new services and for the triple play.”

Occam Networks at SUPERCOMM, meanwhile, previewed ADSL2+ capabilities on its gear.

Also at SUPERCOMM, some DSL vendors touted products that extend the reach of DSL.

Pedestal Networks was founded in 2001 on the premise of solving the problem of customers being too far away from a central office or remote terminal to be economically served by a wireline carrier for broadband, says Corey Geiger, vice president of marketing for Pedestal. “We wanted to build a unit that was line-powered from the central office or remote terminal,” Geiger says. “It would be outside and provide broadband services to a small number of subscribers. The key is that we didn’t want the carrier to have to rebuy POTS and they needed easy installation.”

The result is a hermetically sealed, line-powered device that leverages the copper and can be nailed on a pole, mounted on a cross box or even stuck in a manhole. Pedestal, which currently serves the independent telco market, is migrating to ADSL2+.

Also at the show, ADTRAN highlighted an OSP DSL access multiplexer that doesn’t need a cabinet or a central office. It can be mounted on a pole, closer to the subscriber.

The IMA-driven solution is an alternative to a remote terminal, says David Williams, market manager for the carrier networks division of ADTRAN. “To offer video over DSL, you’ve got to get within 5,000 feet,” he says.

In a similar move, Charles Industries has partnered with Ericsson to offer the STEP DSL solutions, which Charles is rolling out. The HVDL 3.1 is a high-speed voice and data link that extends the reach of DSL to go anywhere copper goes, up to 100,000 feet from the central office, says Mark E.

Huntzinger, director of the access and transmission business unit for Charles. “We’ve seen demand increase recently [for more advanced products],” Huntzinger says. “The mainstream DSL market is flattening.”

“A lot of the independent telcos are excited for video, and the field trials are going well,” he adds. “And we’ve been marketing extending reach for DSL for four years, so this is nice to see.”