DSL on the heels of cable

By John Edwards

The DSL hardware market encompasses a wide array of products, including chips, modems, DSLAMs and voice/data splitters. The hot technology of the moment, however, is integrated access devices (IADs). "With all the interest in VoDSL, it's become a focal point of the DSL market," says Sean Dalton, a general partner with Highland Capital Partners, a venture capital firm. Accelerated Networks (ACCL), Integral Access and Vina (VINA) are among the startups active in this market, although veteran networking companies such as Cisco Systems and 3Com, through an alliance with Copper Mountain Networks, are also moving in on the action. "Given its vast potential, it's a field that's important for us to be in," says Julie Shimer, vice president and general manager of 3Com's residential-connectivity group.

The IAD is typically located on the customer premises and performs the task of integrating multiple traffic types over a single access line. IADs come in various configurations, but all perform the same basic function: multiplexing voice and data traffic streams into IP flows over DSL.

IAD makers would desperately like to see the DSL service providers get their acts together. "Creating the technology is the easy part," says Enzo Signore, marketing director of Cisco's DSL business unit. "What's needed is making DSL more easily available to consumers. Waiting several weeks to get a DSL connection is not acceptable."

Intelligent solutions

As more subscribers jump onto the DSL bandwagon, some experts are warning that the technology could soon become a victim of its own success. A recent study by investment banking firm Bear, Stearns & Co. concludes that high-speed access is exacerbating the Net's intrinsic sluggishness. For years, ISPs and content providers could blame glacial-speed dial-up connections for tardy performance. But the proliferation of DSL has turned the tables, and carriers and users are now blaming ISPs for glacial downloading speeds.

"For years, everyone has been looking at the last mile; now the attention is turning to the thousand of miles in front," says Covad's Cardinale.

The proposed solutions include adding "intelligence" at the network level. At the backbone level, the report suggests serving content from locations as close as possible to the requester and optimizing routing. But all of this will require major investments that many ISPs are unwilling or financially unable to make.

Content owners, on the other hand, are finding they can't solve the problem simply by adding more servers and bandwidth. Adding more servers to deal with peak demands results in servers sitting idle during periods of low demand. To keep pace with demand, content providers are turning to intelligent solutions like caching, load balancing and bandwidth management to relieve network congestion.

Bandwidth is a two-way street, TeleChoice's Hurley says. "More than a few subscribers have been disappointed to discover that DSL hasn't lived up to their lofty expectations. They're now looking to ISPs and content providers for satisfaction."

Looking ahead

The years ahead will see DSL evolve with technology and subscribers' needs. Sometime within the next three to five years, predicts 3Com's Shimer, "DSL technology could begin to be widely used to deliver asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) to homes and small- to medium-size businesses in order to provide voice, DSL and other broadband services."

DSL is also expected to dovetail nicely with home networks, which will rely on the broadband technology to provide phone service, data, video and other communications technologies to family members in individual rooms throughout a house. "Everyone who thought copper wire's days were numbered is in for a big surprise," says Highland Capital Partners' Dalton. "In some ways, DSL is just warming up." Something that wild horses, perhaps, won't be able to stop.