Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line - ADSL
A new technology that provides high transmission speeds for video and voice to homes over ordinary copper telephone wire. It will be most cost-effective in areas with a low market penetration of cable TV.
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Sometimes just called DSL, this is considered to be the major competition to cable modems.
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See also: Bandwidth, Broadband, Internet Service Provider - ISP
Also spelled: ADSL
Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line communications, protocol
(ADSL, or Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Loop) A form of Digital Subscriber Line in which the bandwidth available for downstream connection is significantly larger then for upstream. Although designed to minimise the effect of crosstalk between the upstream and downstream channels this setup is well suited for web browsing and client-server applications as well as for some emerging applications such as video on demand.
The data-rate of ADSL strongly depends on the length and quality of the line connecting the end-user to the telephone company. Typically the upstream data flow is between 16 and 640 kilobits per second while the downstream data flow is between 1.5 and 9 megabits per second. ADSL also provides a voice channel.
ADSL can carry digital data, analog voice, and broadcast MPEG2 video in a variety of implementations to meet customer needs.
["Data Cooks, But Will Vendors Get Burned?", "Supercomm Spotlight On ADSL" & "Lucent Sells Paradine", Wilson & Carol, Inter@ctive Week Vol. 3 #13, p1 & 6, June 24 1996].
See also Carrierless Amplitude/Phase Modulation, Discrete MultiTone.
ADSL Forum.
(1998-05-18)