[Sussex] VoDSL - Waiting in the wings

Tue Sep 16 22:56:01 UTC 2003

Not a "Linuxy" subject, but I thought it would be of interest.

from: "Broadband Magazine May 2002"

http://www.broadbandmag.co.uk/features/may_02/VoDSL.htm

VoDSL is a technology that has the potential to dramatically shake-up the
local access voice market. And this is the reason why its transition from
laboratory to mass-market deployment will be made in the teeth of a spirited
rear-guard defence by the incumbent operators of Europe

While the current cloud of economic uncertainty hangs over global telecoms
markets, talk of investment in new technologies sounds hollow - particularly
since it was partly this, in the guise of 3G and backbone networks, that has
brought the sector to its present sorry state. But the industry will not be
in reverse forever and when it does find first gear it will have to look
collectively at the range of new technologies that have been mothballed
since the industry went into 'freefall'. 

And among the most seductive - and potentially significant - is
voice-over-DSL (VoDSL) technology. VoDSL enables operators to offer
broadband data access and multiple voice channels over the same single
twisted pair access line. 

Three sets of equipment are required to implement VoDSL:

* An integrated access device (IAD) at the customer premises
* A DSLAM (DSL access multiplexer) at the carrier's local exchange
* A voice gateway, which transfers the voice traffic from the DSL network to
the public switched telephone network (PSTN).

This enables computers, telephones and fax machines all to be connected to
the single line. 'The IAD takes the voice and data through the DSL line to
the DSLAM,' says Mahendra Soneji, director of Product Marketing at Polycom,
a US IAD manufacturer. 
'The DSLAM can have thousands of lines coming in from various customers,'
says Soneji. 'The device bifurcates (splits) the information and sends the
voice traffic - which can be compressed - to a voice gateway connected to a
class 5 switch and over to the PSTN, and sends the data to the Internet via
an ISP.'

With VoDSL provision over ADSL, users can typically expect to operate
between two and four telephone lines alongside a concurrent broadband data
connection, says Allied Data's director of sales worldwide, Shane Rigby.
Additionally, he says, the voice calls will be of toll quality. 

A threat

However, while VoDSL looks good on paper, in the immediate future the
technology's potential is likely to remain untapped in any large-scale
capacity. The reason is simple: incumbent operators across Europe, which
despite the EU's best regulatory efforts dominate DSL networks, are
reluctant to deploy it. As they see it, VoDSL would eat into their existing
local voice revenue streams. [An integrated voice and DSL service would be
cheaper to provision and regulators would expect incumbents to pass on cost
savings to their customers]. 

Additionally, the demise of Jetstream Communications in late April 2002 -
arguably the largest supplier of VoDSL equipment to the US market - must
have sent alarm bells ringing in Europe's nascent VoDSL sector. Not so, says
Allied Data's Rigby. He believes that while the failure of US carriers to
embrace VoDSL more quickly undoubtedly played an important part in the
company's downfall, of more significance was the part played by 'standards'.
The US and Europe employ different standards concerning integrated data and
voice channels, and it was the difficulty posed by the US legislation that
Rigby believes made it impossible for Jetstream to continue trading. 

Thus, in Europe, until its incumbents begin to feel threatened by VoDSL
provision by the CLECS (competitive local exchange carriers) - which is
unlikely in the short-term because of the few companies that have managed to
survive - it will only be the few CLEC customers that provide any real
sustenance to VoDSL solution providers. Despite the commercial benefits of
VoDSL, customers will have to wait a long time to receive a call from their
service provider offering them an integrated voice and data solution. 

But if we fast-forward five years from now and imagine a 'telescape' where
multiple CLECs operate throughout the region and incumbent dominance of the
local loop is a thing of the past; we may well begin to see the emergence of
the first flat-rate, bundled voice and data packages - where voice calls are
effectively free. And once this is established, Europe really will be on its
way to the 'networked e-conomy'. 

Way to go

Yet there is a long way to go before the above scenario becomes a reality.
But there are signs that the region's VoDSL market is evolving. Versatel in
the Netherlands launched Europe's first bundled VoDSL service in 2001 and
Allied Data's Rigby says that towards the end of 2002, there will be further
exciting developments in Germany and Italy. 

Additionally, despite the well-publicised attrition rate of UK-based CLECS,
VoDSL is getting a toehold there. 'Voice over DSL is of interest to our
partners who have both voice customers and data customers, be that Internet
access, VPN or ASP offerings,' says Phil Smith, DSL business development
manager at UK network infrastructure provider Fibernet, one of the few
alternative operators left in the UK local loop unbundling process.

'Our partners are ISPs and traditional voice carriers,' explains Smith. 'We
allow VoDSL to be deployed over our DSL service. We're not actually offering
it ourselves, but we allow our partners to put voice gateways on and use
IADs,' he says. 

Smith continues: 'Once customers start using VoDSL, they won't need to buy
private branch exchanges (PBXs) any more, so when they come to renew them,
they can save on capital expenditure,' he says. 'It doesn't sound a lot,
?6,700 for a PBX, but if you're a local solicitor, that represents quite a
lot of money.' In contrast, Smith believes that larger companies are less
likely to want VoDSL because of their larger bandwidth requirements and
their existing convergent voice and data solutions. 

Furthermore, says Scott Rex, principal partner and senior research analyst
at Research First, 'Internet-centric small businesses recognise the powerful
competitive advantage of VoDSL. This can translate to a huge boon for
service providers, provided they focus on critical deployment factors that
lead to cost-effective bundled services.' 

There is undoubtedly a lucrative market for VoDSL across Europe;
unfortunately, however, by definition it must piggyback developments in the
DSL market which is yet to achieved mass-market status and probably will not
for some time. Additionally, VoDSL, whether asymmetric or symmetric, is not
for everyone - it is unlikely that large corporates would ever see the
benefit. But this still leave millions of small and medium-sized businesses
that would reap significant commercial benefits from a VoDSL solution. Alas,
until incumbents are forced to relinquish their strangle hold over local
access, these benefits will have to go begging. 

-- 
Angelo Servini
Programmer/Analyst
Claybrook Computing Ltd
Sutherland House
Russell Way
Crawley
West Sussex.  RH10 1UH
* 01293 604955
* 01293 604099 (Fax)
* angelo.servini at claybrook.co.uk

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