January 18, 1999
Is 1999 the year of DSL?
By Bob O'Donnell
As anyone who follows PC technology knows, the problems these days don't have to do
with processing horsepower but with bandwidth. Specifically, we need fatter pipes to
connect PCs to the Internet. The demand for such a service is enormous.
In fact, given the amount of businesses and individuals clamoring for low-cost,
high-speed Internet access, it doesn't take a genius to realize that there's a huge
potential market here. Yet, in spite of this, the major telcos and cable companies, which
have the capability to deliver exactly what the market is demanding, have been taking
their sweet time bringing affordable, broadband connection services to market. (Clearly,
these companies have a thing or two to learn about Internet time.)
Finally last week, however, some important steps were taken by the Digital Subscriber
Line (DSL) camp. Perhaps finally spurred into action by the competition from cable
companies, SBC Communications, parent company of Pacific Bell and Southwestern Bell, and
Bell Atlantic, in conjunction with America Online, both announced major low-cost DSL
deployments.
SBC Communications will soon begin a large-scale deployment in Texas, Missouri,
Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Kansas, which are the five states served by Southwestern Bell, and
will start trials in Connecticut in February. In the case of Pacific Bell, the company
dramatically chopped the prices of its existing DSL services to the $40 to $50 monthly
rates that the market now expects.
The Bell Atlantic/AOL deal marks the first major foray by the online service into
making high-speed Internet connections available to its 15 million customers. It's
expected to be the first of several similar types of deals with other telcos around the
country.
The bottom line result of these and other similar deals is that within a very short
period of time, an enormous number of homes and small-business users are finally going to
have access to Internet connections with download speeds as fast as 1.5 Mbps (the Bell
Atlantic InfoSpeed DSL service is apparently limited to only 640 Kbps). Equally
importantly, because of the way DSL works, these connections can be made on existing
copper phone lines without interrupting voice service, and they're always on.
Up until this point, the cable companies have had a head start on the consumer market,
but I think announcements such as this could quickly turn the tide. Many home and
small-business users are already used to dealing with their phone companies for Internet
access, anyway. And now that these companies have set aside their selfish self-interest in
trying to maintain their lucrative T1 and similar types of lines (and proven that they
finally "get it"), they can quickly grab a commanding lead in this potentially
enormous market.
Technically speaking, cable modems still offer a potentially faster link than the
Asymmetrical DSL (ADSL) Lite format being offered via the phone companies, which may lead
some individuals to prefer the cable modem option. But as numerous problems with bandwidth
saturation and other issues in real-world cable modem installations around the country
have shown, cable modems have their downsides as well. In fact, the dedicated connection
that ADSL provides could end up being the deciding technical factor in making it the
preferred high-speed Internet access choice.
Regardless of how the competition plays out, however, it's clear that this year will
see the rapid adoption of high-speed Internet access, which should lead to some dramatic
changes in how the Internet acts and works. It's going to be fun to watch.
©
Copyright 1999, by InfoWorld Publishing Corp., a
subsidiary of IDG Communications, Inc. Reprinted from InfoWorld,
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