DSL.Lite on trial in Oregon

By Tim Greene
Network World, 10/29/98

Portland, Ore.- GTE has leapt into a trial of easy to install digital subscriber line (DSL) technology.

Following the announcement last week that an international standard for the easy-install DSL, known as DSL.Lite has been formalized, GTE said they have been conducting a trial of the technology in Portland, Ore., for the past 30 days.

The goal of the trial is to find out how well DSL.Lite works in the real world over existing phone lines and using existing phone wiring inside homes.

DSL.Lite is a slower version of asymmetric DSL (ADSL). Whereas ADSL can reach download speeds of 7M bit/sec, DSL.Lite's maximum download speed is 1.5M bit/sec.

In exchange for the lower bandwidth, DSL.Lite can perform on a regular phone line without the need to install a filter, known as a splitter, this protects the voice channel on the line from noise produced by the DSL data stream.

Installing a splitter is a complication and an expense that many service providers would like to avoid.

So far, GTE has 20 DSL.Lite lines installed in homes ranging in age from new to 50 years old. Trial customers, all employees of Intel, get a DSL.Lite modem from Orckit that connects to their PC via an Ethernet port. Customers can then use the line to access the Internet and to make regular voice phone calls simultaneously.

One problem identified so far is that the quality of voice connections can be poor on a DSL.Lite line, depending on how good the actual phones are.

So GTE has provisioned the DSL.Lite modems to drop their speed so they will run quieter when anyone picks up a phone in the house.

The best case so far has the speed of the DSL.Lite download connection dropping from 1.5M bit/sec to 480K bit/sec when a phone extension is picked up in the home.

Depending on the quality of the telephones in the home, the DSL.Lite connection can still be disrupted when a phone call is made. In those cases, GTE is installing a filter that sits between the phone and the wall jack.

So far, GTE technicians have installed the DSL gear so they can gather information about the line quality and the quality of phone wiring inside the home.

During the second phase of the trial, scheduled to start next month, customers will be given a modem and instructions on how to install it. "We will call the next day to see how well they did," said Bev White, program manager for new business development at GTE.

The trial will eventually be extended to 50 customers.