Home
Special Promotions
DSL
Web Hosting
Dial Up
Dedicated Access
Web Page Design
Feedback
Navigation
Prices
Our History
Online Forms
Help
Search Page
Email Us
Back

DSL Newsletter

DSL Newsletter – April 2000
www.mminternet.com/dsl
888-654-4971

DSL Growth

The major industry analysts have started to write-up DSL lately and they have some numbers in on how many subscribers are using DSL and what the potential market is for DSL. This is good news since the larger the market; the more companies will build products and the range of consumer choice increases.

Currently, the estimates are in for about 700,000 installed DSL circuits nationally. That includes all types of circuits from local Telco and CLEC’s. Analysts like Cahner’s, Giga, etc. are estimating growth of at least 1M circuits in the year 2000 and potentially as many as 1.5M. This growth is expected to continue in to continue into 2001. 

The numbers for real broadband Internet users is hard to measure precisely though since DSL circuits are used in two ways. Covad, Northpoint, and Rythms all sell a VPN (Virtual Private Network) service directly to companies and organizations. Customers like universities or large companies can provide secure private access data lines to their internal systems using a DSL circuit. All the CLEC’s have a direct sales force that markets these services.

 From financial reports I found that Covad claims as of December 31, 1999 they have 57,000 lines installed, Northpoint claims 23,500, and Rythms claims 12,500. All three report almost doubling their installed lines from the previous quarter with Northpoint showing over 100% growth. So there are 93,000 lines total installed between these companies.

 There are several issues affecting growth of DSL. The first is the deployment of splitterless technology. If you were a “pioneer” and got your DSL last year, you probably had a telephone company install a splitter on your phone line. If you had a CLEC installed circuit from Covad, Northpoint or Rythms you had a new line run out to your facility just to run DSL. GTE started deploying splitterless technology nationwide on February 1^st.   CLEC’s have tested line sharing so they can share the voice line from the local telco and not have to have a local loop installed.

Splitterless technology allows the installation to done by the user. The user receives a kit with phone filters and the DSL modem. The filters are on RJ11 jacks and install in every phone jack for that phone line. Installation takes less than an hour and does not require a telephone technician. Obviously, more installations can be done without requiring a “truck roll” or technician to visit the premise. This allows a user to get installed in about 10 days after they place the order instead of waiting 3-4 weeks.

Another  issue is availability and distance limits.  The best solutions require placing DSL equipment in telco remote offices. This would enable DSL to reach a higher percentage of users. Depending on your telephone company, as many as 70% of people are within range of their central offices to as low as 40%. The telco central offices were not deployed based on DSL distance limits and rely on remote offices to reach telco circuits out past 17,000 feet.

Unfortunately these remote offices are in small, and have little room for additional equipment like DSL racks.  So far the solution to get DSL beyond the distance limit is still IDSL which is not that attractive because of higher pricing and speed limits.

This leaves a large population in the “twilight zone” of high-speed Internet access where the local cable company has not deployed cable modem and they are too far away to get DSL. (If you’re one of these you have my sympathy.). There are some new wireless technologies that have recently been announced but the cost for equipment is only practical for multi-dwelling units.

Bob Cohen

copyright 1999 MM Internet, Inc.