Digital subscriber line is a family of technologies that are used to transmit digital data over telephone lines. In telecommunications marketing, the term DSL is widely understood to mean asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL), the most commonly installed DSL technology, for Internet access.
A symmetric digital subscriber line (SDSL) is a digital subscriber line (DSL) that transmits digital data over the copper wires of the telephone network, where the bandwidth in the downstream direction, from the network to the subscriber, is identical to the bandwidth in the upstream direction, from the subscriber to the network. This symmetric bandwidth can be considered to be the opposite of the asymmetric bandwidth offered by asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL) technologies, where the upstream bandwidth is lower than the downstream bandwidth. SDSL is generally marketed at business customers, while ADSL is marketed at private as well as business customers.
Very high-speed digital subscriber line (VDSL) and very high-speed digital subscriber line 2 (VDSL2) are digital subscriber line (DSL) technologies providing data transmission faster than the earlier standards of asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL) G.992.1, G.992.3 (ADSL2) and G.992.5 (ADSL2+).
A digital subscriber line access multiplexer is a network device, often located in telephone exchanges, that connects multiple customer digital subscriber line (DSL) interfaces to a high-speed digital communications channel using multiplexing techniques. Its cable internet (DOCSIS) counterpart is the cable modem termination system.
Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification (DOCSIS) is an international telecommunications standard that permits the addition of high-bandwidth data transfer to an existing cable television (CATV) system. It is used by many cable television operators to provide cable Internet access over their existing hybrid fiber-coaxial (HFC) infrastructure.
In telecommunications, ITU-T G.992.1 is an ITU standard for ADSL using discrete multitone modulation (DMT). G.dmt full-rate ADSL expands the usable bandwidth of existing copper telephone lines, delivering high-speed data communications at rates up to 8 Mbit/s downstream and 1.3 Mbit/s upstream.
Single-pair high-speed digital subscriber line (SHDSL) is a form of symmetric digital subscriber line (SDSL), a data communications technology for equal transmit and receive data rate over copper telephone lines, faster than a conventional voiceband modem can provide. As opposed to other DSL technologies, SHDSL employs trellis-coded pulse-amplitude modulation (TC-PAM). As a baseband transmission scheme, TC-PAM operates at frequencies that include those used by the analog voice plain old telephone service (POTS). As such, a frequency splitter, or DSL filter, cannot be used to allow a telephone line to be shared by both an SHDSL service and a POTS service at the same time. Support of symmetric data rates made SHDSL a popular choice by businesses for private branch exchange (PBX), virtual private network (VPN), web hosting and other data services.
Rate-adaptive digital subscriber line (RADSL) is a pre-standard asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL) solution. RADSL was introduced as proprietary technology by AT&T Paradyne, later GlobeSpan Technologies Inc., in June 1996. In September 1999, RADSL technology was formally described by ANSI in T1.TR.59-1999. RADSL supports downstream data rates of up to approximately 8 Mbit/s, upstream data rates up to approximately 1 Mbit/s, and can coexist with POTS voice on the same line.
ANSI T1.413 is a technical standard that defines the requirements for the single asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL) for the interface between the telecommunications network and the customer installation in terms of their interaction and electrical characteristics. ADSL allows the provision of voiceband services including plain old telephone service (POTS) and data services up to 56 kbit/s, and a variety of digital channels. In the direction from the network to the customer premises (downstream), the digital bearer channels may consist of full-duplex low-speed bearer channels and simpler high-speed bearer channels; in the other (upstream) direction, only low-speed bearer channels are provided.
G.992.5 is an ITU-T standard for asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL) broadband Internet access. The standard has a maximum theoretical downstream sync speed of 24 megabits per second (Mbit/s). Utilizing G.992.5 Annex M upstream sync speeds of 3.3 Mbit/s can be achieved.
Carrierless amplitude phase modulation (CAP) is a variant of quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM). Instead of modulating the amplitude of two carrier waves, CAP generates a QAM signal by combining two PAM signals filtered through two filters designed so that their impulse responses form a Hilbert pair. If the impulse responses of the two filters are chosen as sine and a cosine, the only mathematical difference between QAM and CAP waveforms is that the phase of the carrier is reset at the beginning of each symbol. If the carrier frequency and symbol rates are similar, the main advantage of CAP over QAM is simpler implementation. The modulation of the baseband signal with the quadrature carriers is not necessary with CAP, because it is part of the transmit pulse.
In telecommunications, ITU G.992.2 is an ITU standard for ADSL using discrete multitone modulation. G.lite does not strictly require the use of DSL filters, but like all variants of ADSL generally functions better with splitters.
ITU G.992.3 is an ITU standard, also referred to as ADSL2 or G.dmt.bis. It optionally extends the capability of basic ADSL in data rates to 12 Mbit/s downstream and, depending on Annex version, up to 3.5 Mbit/s upstream. ADSL2 uses the same bandwidth as ADSL but achieves higher throughput via improved modulation techniques. Actual speeds may decrease depending on line quality; usually the most significant factor in line quality is the distance from the DSLAM to the customer's equipment.
A digital subscriber line (DSL) modem is a device used to connect a computer or router to a telephone line which provides the digital subscriber line (DSL) service for connection to the Internet, which is often called DSL broadband. The modem connects to a single computer or router, through an Ethernet port, USB port, or is installed in a computer PCI slot.
Annex M is an optional specification in ITU-T recommendations G.992.3 (ADSL2) and G.992.5 (ADSL2+), also referred to as ADSL2 M and ADSL2+ M. This specification extends the capability of commonly deployed Annex A by more than doubling the number of upstream bits. The data rates can be as high as 12 or 24 Mbit/s downstream and 3 Mbit/s upstream depending on the distance from the DSLAM to the customer's premises.
High-bit-rate digital subscriber line (HDSL) is a telecommunications protocol standardized in 1994. It was the first digital subscriber line (DSL) technology to use a higher frequency spectrum over copper, twisted pair cables. HDSL was developed to transport DS1 services at 1.544 Mbit/s and 2.048 Mbit/s over telephone local loops without a need for repeaters. Successor technology to HDSL includes HDSL2 and HDSL4, proprietary SDSL, and G.SHDSL.
Asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL) is a type of digital subscriber line (DSL) technology, a data communications technology that enables faster data transmission over copper telephone lines than a conventional voiceband modem can provide. ADSL differs from the less common symmetric digital subscriber line (SDSL). In ADSL, bandwidth and bit rate are said to be asymmetric, meaning greater toward the customer premises (downstream) than the reverse (upstream). Providers usually market ADSL as an Internet access service primarily for downloading content from the Internet, but not for serving content accessed by others.
ITU G.992.4 is a standard for splitterless ADSL2 with data rate mandatory capability reduced to 1.536 Mbit/s downstream and 512 kbit/s upstream. It is also referred to as G.lite.bis.
G.fast is a digital subscriber line (DSL) protocol standard for local loops shorter than 500 meters, with performance targets between 100 Mbit/s and 1 Gbit/s, depending on loop length. High speeds are only achieved over very short loops. Although G.fast was initially designed for loops shorter than 250 meters, Sckipio in early 2015 demonstrated G.fast delivering speeds over 100 Mbit/s at nearly 500 meters and the EU announced a research project.
