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DSL Newsletter – June 2000                                             

www.mminternet.com/dsl

G.Lite

The DSL and Telco industry has high hopes for G.Lite. G.Lite is a standard that promises to simplify installation, create interchangeable DSL Customer Premise Equipment (CPE) and enable the potential DSL customer to go to a retail store, buy a DSL modem, and install it at home or at work with any telephone company.

GTE recently held seminars that discussed their plans for G.Lite. Other DSL Telco’s have been promising G.Lite as well. First of all what is G.Lite. G.Lite is technically and ITU standard (ITU G.992.2) and was developed to promote the widespread use of DSL. G.Lite ahs some key advantages over current DSL technology. It’s splitterless, meaning there is no telephone splitter line that has to be installed by a technician. It uses all existing inside telephone wiring and standard jacks, again simplifying installation. All CPE equipment is interchangeable (in theory) so you can but any vendors DSL modem that meets G.Lite standards. Speeds are rated at up to 1.5Mbps upstream and up to 512K downstream, and it uses ATM for backbone transmission.

What’s taking so long is that not all Telco equipment or circuits meet G.Lite standards. Each Telco is making its plans to get to G.Lite and they are all working with equipment manufacturers but Telco technology, even DSL just does not move that fast. I expect the Telco’s to be ready to deploy G.Lite soon; GTE says equipment will start deployment in CO's in August. CPE equipment manufacturers will have trouble coming up with a CPE device that will work with a high degree of success. Most Telco’s do not want to risk customer satisfaction with CPE equipment problems.

GTE says that G.Lite will not replace their current network but supplement it. Currently GTE deploys DSL over frame-relay equipment and does a frame-to-ATM conversion for customers connected to ISP’s that use ATM. GTE has been able to deploy splitterless technology with their current G.DMT network and does not require a service technician to do an install. The customer is shipped a DSL modem device and filters and does a self-installation. Installation lead times for GTE have dropped from 30 days to less than 14 days from the time the order is placed. 

A new customer could get installed on frame or ATM connection depending on the ISP they select. GTE will match up the ISP selected with the customer’s Central Office location. If the ISP is connected with ATM, the user will get connected to an ATM device at their Central Office if ATM equipment is available. GTE plans to have ATM equipment installed in most of their Central Offices by November, with installations starting in July in their Florida area.

GTE plans to start offering Service Level commitments for their Silver, Gold, and Platinum services with the deployment of their ATM network but will only do this with ISP’s connected to them via ATM. To date there are only four ISP’s that I am aware of that have an ATM connection to GTE and that will be able to offer these new services.

OK, so why aren’t other DSL backbones like COVAD, Northpoint, Rythyms, etc doing this? It all has to do with the network design and equipment they have in place. Deploying the equipment in each Central Office is expensive and in many cases, the equipment selected by the CLEC or ILEC will not be G.Lite upgradeable. Since many of these companies are still rolling out their equipment, they cannot afford to make a change and replace it at this time.

Of Note:

Best DSL TV ad goes to SBC who has been running ads directly targeting cable companies. SBC companies like Pacific Bell have been running ads that show a neighborhood where neighbor is at war with neighbor. People are cutting each other’s cable modem connections, garages have been spray-painted with the words “WEB HOG”, and police are patrolling the area breaking up fights. Pretty entertaining and I head that Time-Warner is suing SBC over these ads so I don’t know if they’ll run much longer.

Bob Cohen

copyright 1999 MM Internet, Inc.