LONDON — Ericsson is reentering the market for DSL access multiplexers (DSLAMs) this week with an innovative Ethernet access card that it says will unlock the mass market for DSL services by dramatically changing the economics of broadband DSL rollouts.
The company says its Ethernet DSLAM is the smallest in the world, and with eight to 10 DSL lines per board, offers exceptional scalability. It connects to a standard main distribution frame (MDF) block and can be plugged directly into the broadband MDF. Standard DSL modems are employed on the end user side.
The modular set-up leads to a DSLAM that can scale from just 10 lines to nearer 4,000 lines housed in a typical 7-foot cabinet. That means operators won't have to invest in and install lines until they have signed up customers to support the investment, Ericsson said.
"We have been pretty much in stealth mode all this year about this product and our intention to take on the leading players in the Ethernet DSLAM business, and think our solution will make the incumbents stand back and think," said Peter Linder, Ericsson's technical expert on Ethernet broadband access, who is also a board member of the Ethernet in the First Mile Alliance (EFMA).
"The industry is facing a crossroads in broadband access, and operators need to make a choice. We can continue as we are now, or start migrating towards a public Ethernet. The first steps towards that is an economic means of converting users from dial-up to Ethernet DSL access using Metro Ethernet as the back-haul," said Linder.
The second stage, he suggested, will have to await agreement for a full public Ethernet standard, which is being done under the auspices of the IEEE P802.3ah task force and is about 18 months off. The Alliance, which includes companies such as Cisco Systems, Extreme Networks, World Wide Packets, Intel, NTT, Infineon Technologies, Texas Instruments, Finisar, Alloptic and Broadcom, fully supports the standardization effort and was established in December 2001 to promote Ethernet subscriber access technology and acceptance.
Ericsson's approach and reason for developing its Ethernet DSL multiplexer is to attract small to medium-sized users that have held back from deploying DSL because of the prohibitive costs associated with upgrading the 'second mile' of the network — between the DSL access multiplexer and the nearest switching node — which has traditionally used TDM and ATM technology.
"Our approach offers four huge advantages over traditional DSLAMs," Linder said. "It makes small sites profitable, has a small footprint and is uniquely scalable, it removes bottlenecks and minimizes transport costs, and offers a universal DSL line. The same box can thus support ADSL and S-ADSL [symmetrical ADSL], whether ISDN or POTS lines, significantly reducing the investment involved. Our benchmarks show that the entry costs can now be reduced from typically $7,000 or $5,000 to nearer $2,000 to $2,500 [for a 10-line installation]."
Linder said the DSLAM is undergoing trials with at least 10 network operators covering Asia/Pacific, Europe and North America. The first commercial order has just been received from China Telecom to upgrade the operator's DSL network in Anhui province in Southern China, mostly for residential subscribers. "We will be aggressively pushing our strategy next year, which includes the proposition that operators will be able to get a payback from using the technology within 12 months," he said.
Initial contracts are likely to come from new carriers deploying metro Ethernet for the first time, rather than incumbents, and from Asia/Pacific or Europe, rather than the United States.
He suggested existing players in the DSLAM business, such as Alcatel, will be surprised by the functionality Ericsson has achieved and the low cost base from which it will approach the business. Those companies will have difficulty following the same approach as it would impact their legacy DSLAM business, he said.
"Of course it's a big challenge, and we can't take anything for granted in these difficult times for the industry, but we have a great chance to reestablish ourselves in this market," he said.
Ericsson has four partners in the venture: Broadcom, which is supplying the ASICs and transceivers used in the DSLAM; Juniper Networks, which is doing the service provisioning; Axerra Networks, which is helping with legacy services over Ethernet; and metro Ethernet switch specialist Extreme Networks.
