Is FRoDSL reliable?

Whenever frame relay over DSL is discussed, the question of reliability inevitably arises. And the common, albeit incorrect, belief is that FRoDSL is inherently less reliable than competitive technologies. We beg to differ. In fact, we think FRoDSL has gotten an undeserved “guilt by association” due to consumer-grade DSL and cable services.

Whenever frame relay over DSL is discussed, the question of reliability inevitably arises.  And the common, albeit incorrect, belief is that FRoDSL is inherently less reliable than competitive technologies.  We beg to differ.  In fact, we think FRoDSL has gotten an undeserved “guilt by association” due to consumer-grade DSL and cable services.

First, consider the cable plant. The most common point of failure for most communications services is a cable cut. DSL services use the same cable plant as traditional telephony and data access services. There’s no inherent disadvantage (or advantage) for traditional or DSL-based solutions. Copper is copper.

Also, consider the transport equipment reliability. DSL equipment is built to be as reliable as traditional equipment. Industry-standard components are used and the backbone is “carrier-class.” Consequently, as far as mean-time-between-failure (MTBF) is concerned, DSL is on par with other technologies.

The challenge that FRoDSL has is that DSL is generally thought of as a consumer-grade Internet access service.  And many consumers don’t think about the various components involved in Internet access. If you can’t get e-mail, the DSL service is considered to be “down.” If there’s a Web site that doesn’t respond, the DSL service is “not responding.” If the traffic at a Web server is causing congestion, then the DSL service is “slow.”

In reality, few of the perceived reliability problems with DSL service are actually problems with the DSL service itself. Rather, it’s a problem with a server, a router, or maybe even congestion on the Internet itself.  And none of these are issues for FRoDSL services.

Next time we’ll finish up some FRoDSL comments and address the mean-time-to-repair question.