You are here: silicon.com > Networks > Telecoms

Telecoms

BT kick-starts ADSL trials in London

By Lisa Burroughes

Published: 15 October 1998 17:23 GMT

BT has launched its first trials of high speed ADSL (Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line) technology in London. Consumers and small businesses in the north and west of the city will be able to hook up to the Internet at speeds of up to 2Mbps with Interactive Services Network (INS) trial. The technology also allows simultaneous use of normal phone lines.

The trials will run until the end of March 1999, at which point BT will announce its future plans for the technology.

Last month, the UK telco launched BT Highway, which offers Internet connection over ISDN lines, however ADSL is significantly faster. Download speeds can be over fifteen times faster while upload speeds are double ISDN's maximum of 128kbps.

Simon Brookes, IP network services manager at BT, said: "ADSL has a higher bandwidth, but it is not symmetric. The best application for the corporate would be for remote access to the corporate LAN from the home, videoconferencing or to download information between distributed sites." He added: "ISDN is symmetric and is here now."

Gavin Parnaby, analyst at Datamonitor, said: "The growth of the Internet means people need more bandwidth and in a couple of years ADSL will be widely available, but ISDN is the stepping stone."

Parnaby added: "ADSL will mainly be taken up by consumers, small businesses and SoHo's (small office, home office). Big corporates would go for fibre optic cable or HDSL which can provide symmetric high speed voice and data transfer."

Meanwhile Kingston Communications - which operates a local loop network around Hull in the UK - has been trialling ADSL in Hessle for 18 months. Last month it completed its network upgrade for ADSL and is expected to launch commercial products around March 1999.

  1. Zones
  2. Management
  3. Networks
  4. Software
  5. IT Services
  6. Hardware
  1. Verticals
  2. Public Sector
  3. Financial Services
  4. Retail & Leisure

Peter Cochrane Peter Cochrane's Blog: How the telcos could save themselves Doomed network operators could thrive with a bit of innovation

Peter Cochrane Peter Cochrane's Blog: Facebook saves teen from prison Another unexpected impact of social networking


  • Jobs
NOC Support Engineer – Telco – Docklands – To 35,000 + Package

Good understanding of BGP routing for Private VPN and Public ISP • Through knowledge of MPLS layer 2/3 VPN • TCP/IP an interworking ...

Account Manager-ICT Solution Sales

Proven track record of new business - Telco Services not essential ROLE INFORMATION - Selling Voice Data Broadband, security, ISDN, IPVPN, internet ...

Spanish Speaking Data Network Engineer- N.London- Cisco- 35k

Ethernet standards (IEEE 802.3), Frame Relay, ADSL, ISDN, ATM, OC3, OC12). Ability to demonstrate strong technical skills in two or more of the ...

Agenda Setters 2009
Welcome to the ninth annual Agenda Setters poll – silicon.com's list of the top 50 most influential individuals in the technology and IT industries, from techies and CIOs to entrepreneurs and business leaders. Find out more in our latest special report.





Quick Sitemap Links: