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Cable World Staff
A Petaluma, Calif., telecommunications equipment maker says it's developed technology to help local phone companies deliver high-speed Internet access to suburban homes and businesses that otherwise could not get a DSL connection.
"It's a breakthrough that creates an entirely new market space for high-density DSL deployment," says Ron Longo, VP-communications for Advanced Fibre Communications.
The company said its technology allows DSL providers to extend the range of DSL systems by several miles. Although DSL is still limited by distances of roughly three miles over copper phone wires, the new technology allows DSL delivery beyond digital loop carriers (DLC).
That means communications companies can extend fiber optic wires deep into neighborhoods for DSL connections.
"The industry has been looking for solutions to the DLC problem for at least the past year and a half," says Joe Laslo, a broadband analyst with Jupiter Communications.
Advanced Fibre Communications is among a host of companies testing similar technology, which analysts said could give DSL a new edge over cable-modem access in the high-speed Internet access race.
The other companies include Pulsecom, Alcatel, Nortel Networks and Lucent Technologies.
Phone companies generally service suburban business and residential customers by connecting local phone networks in far-away communities with fiber-optic lines.
To cut costs, digital loop carriers aggregate and regenerate those communications over great distances.
But the method can deteriorate connections made on distances more than three miles, which means DSL usually can't work beyond three miles from the DLC.
Advanced Fibre Communications' technology aims to integrate digital loop carrier systems with DSL technology and solve the distance problem.
"This product is cost-engineered for the digital loop," Longo says.
Digital loop carrier systems frequently serve new suburban housing tracts or large office buildings in growing but outlying metropolitan areas. That limits the service pool of who analysts believe are ripe customers for DSL service.
CANADIAN BAKIN' Next Level Communications (NLC) has started cooking in Canada with a multi-year contract with that country's largest communications company - Bell Canada - for access equipment to provide video, high-speed data and telephony services over copper twisted pair to Toronto apartment and condominium residences. In its initial rollout, Bell is offering a service package in targeted high-rise developments with plans to move to other major cities.
GLASSED UP ADC Telecommunications' investment arm, ADC Ventures, has placed its money on Northstar Photonics, a start-up focused on developing laser-based optical devices with greater wavelength stability, higher output power and reduced environmental control complexity compared to standard semiconductor laser devices.
MAKE A WISH Fourth grade students in Connecticut, Illinois, Louisiana and Ohio will be among the first to participate in the WorldGate Internet School to Home (WISH) program starting this fall. The students will get keyboards, set-top boxes from participating vendors and local cable service that gives them filtered Internet access on their home TVs and at school for the entire school year. The service eliminates the need for a computer by linking the students to the Internet via WorldGate's TV-based service.
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