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DSL Services

DSL has been synonymous with residential Internet access, but that's about to change. Frame relay and ATM are too expensive to justify connecting some branch and remote offices, and now smart network managers are taking a hard look at the low prices, good throughput rates, expanded coverage areas and growing list of options offered by DSL service providers. In fact, Gartner Dataquest forecasts that the number of DSL subscribers in the United States will double in 2001 to 3 million, and will reach 13 million by 2005. Most vendors and analysts agree that enterprises will lead the charge.

This growing acceptance by the enterprise market is in part due to vendors' building into DSL modems features that, until now, have been available only in traditional routers. For example, VPNs (virtual private networks) bring some security to DSL customers accessing the corporate network via the public Internet, and voice features provide branch and remote offices with a minimum of four voice lines that can be used for office-to-office or office-to-PSTN communications. These features build on the capabilities of the DSL modem to turn it into a DSL IAD (integrated access device).

Even with vendors' building features into IADs, however, DSL access is still controlled by service providers. As a result, enterprise customers are rarely offered more than two choices in DSL CPE (customer premises equipment).

As interoperability between IADs and DSLAMs improves, subscribers will have more choices and may even be able to buy their DSL equipment from their preferred suppliers. We think this will greatly benefit enterprise customers, and we want to make you aware of what choices are available today. It's time to turn the tables. Instead of selecting a service provider and using whatever it supplies, we recommend finding the equipment you want, then locating a service provider that supports that equipment. In this package we cover the flavors of DSL, explain how to find out which suppliers serve your area and take a look at the CPE available.