Building on its self-proclaimed leadership in digital subscriber line (DSL) broadband access technology, Alcatel debuts a new DSL access multiplexer (DSLAM) device for service providers today, called the 7301, and featuring a new underlying architecture.
The new bandwidth engine makes provision for new broadband services, growing user numbers and other pressures, the company says.
"You can`t put a limit on the amount of bandwidth you will need in future, or on the types of applications that are driving it," says Bernard Grave, marketing director, Alcatel Fixed Network Division, Europe, India, Middle East, Pakistan, France and Africa.
DSL is Alcatel`s real-world broadband technology. It uses existing copper telephone lines to provide high-speed Internet access and other high-bandwidth or high-speed applications, like video on demand. Banking on this technology has allowed the company to provide cost-effective and pragmatic broadband access to developing territories, allowing it to solve the DSL conundrum of losing bandwidth over longer distances.
Alcatel today boasts 25 million DSL lines, but sees disparate demand for it in the many different regions in which it operates. "In Europe, the percentage of people who have DSL stays pretty low; 8% to 10% of PC users, or 30% to 40% of the whole population already subscribe. Clearly, DSL is at the beginning of its uptake, but we predict an accelerated annual growth in order to achieve 50% in the next years," says Grave.
"Korea, on the other hand, is already a very important market for us, as online gaming, video on demand and other applications needing bandwidth are strong there already."
Changes to the device
DSL, together with Alcatel`s previous DSLAM devices, says Grave, is mature enough to handle high-speed Internet access. "But when you go beyond video-to-PC (offering video-multicasting to television), start delivering broadband over greater distances, serve more users, or give DSL a business application, you have to re-architecture the box completely," he adds.
"For one thing, we had to move the Alcatel 7301 (the new DSLAM device) from being a dumb concentrator, like its predecessors, to an intelligent edge device. In other words, in order to deliver on its multimedia tasks, the device had to be more than an aggregating device.
"Its move into the business segment meant it had to handle business services like virtual private networks (tunnelling capabilities). And with a proliferation of multimedia which all need quality of service, it had to intelligently assign dedicated pipes to apps that cannot handle delay or latency.
"When you offer video services, you must emulate satellite quality. The 7301 has a dedicated video bus that takes care of the 3MBps to 4MBps you typically need for a film," Grave says.
The previous configuration of DSLAM devices provided high-speed access over a maximum of 5km. The 7301 goes beyond this distance and further provides the possibility of smaller concentrated access points, or nodes, beyond the central office, to serve users further away than before. In addition, it provides for up to 10 000 users, whereas devices at the moment serve only up to 2 000 users.
Whereas older configurations entailed a separate DSLAM and remote access server device (for user-authentication), the 7301provides both devices in one, and also includes a router, for business purposes and IP multi-casting of video (video on demand).
Markets in waiting
When Alcatel debuted its video on demand offering in Monte Carlo in March, it didn`t, as happened in other territories, separate its multi-casting and normal Internet access efforts. It secured a separate TV channel for video on demand and provided high-speed Internet access to PCs as part of the service.
"France Telecom first resisted DSL efforts, but then it started driving it, and the numbers are speaking volumes.
"Similarly," Grave says with this allegorical reference, "heavily regulated markets may only need to have a willing service provider for the service to take off. In many instances, the incumbent in other parts carried on with copper provisioning of voice and passed new services on to other service providers," he says.
Both Senegal and Morocco have replaced traditional narrowband with DSL, and Alcatel has a reference site in Mauritius for video on demand.
"The trouble with SA is that it is both a developing and developed nation. Few people can afford broadband. I would say the targets here are high earning residential markets. In Africa as a whole, high-speed Internet access will drive DSL, and not so much the newer services.
"I don`t think an existing installed base of satellite will go for it either, unless it is to provide better interactive services "
Fibre, WiFi and more
The device supports both fibre at the central office and wireless beyond the remote office on top of the usual copper. Weighing up bandwidth needs and cost, fibre has limited application. WiFi is regulated, but this is an evolving market, Grave says. Furthermore, it is capable of running a mix of asymmetric DSL (ADSL), ADSL 2 (which solves distance problems), or other flavours of DSL, for high-bandwidth applications.
He concludes that telecoms carriers or Internet service providers do not have to replace their existing infrastructure. The 7301 enables piecemeal upgrades as users warm to the service.
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