Study Shows Huge Surge In DSL Wave

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September 07, 2000 (10:57 AM EDT)

By Kim Renay Anderson,

The latest TeleChoice digital subscriber line study dramatically underscores how popular DSL has become.

The quarterly DSL deployment summary revealed that in first quarter of this year, there were 754,000 of the high-speed lines in service in the United States, compared with 74,000 the same period last year.

At the end of the second quarter, 1.2 million DSL lines were up and running compared to 159,000 the same period last year, the study said.

Researchers at TeleChoice, Tulsa, Okla., project that 2.1 million DSL lines will be in service by the end of the year and 5.1 million by the end of 2001.

But despite the technology's surging popularity, analysts see an array of issues unfolding.

"It takes a long time to provision customers and to get service up and running without any problems," said Matthew Davis, senior analyst at the Yankee Group in Boston.

Education about what DSL has to offer is an issue providers must overcome, Davis said. Another is modem interoperability, said Mike Guertin, analyst at TeleChoice.

"The DSL modem provided by one company may not work for another company," said Guertin. "DSL modem interoperability is going to be the key. Once this matter is resolved, you will see the retail DSL sales take off."

Though asymmetrical DSL dominates the residential marketplace, G.lite, also known as ADSL lite, has a minor presence as well, said Fritz McCormick, analyst at the Yankee Group. HDSL2 is present in the business marketplace along with the stronger SDSL as well.

The demand for service is there, but the problem is getting reliable service to consumers, McCormick said.

Also facing the "always on" DSL arena is the issue of security. Constant connection to the Interent could leave doors open for hackers probing for victims.