Time has become the most valuable commodity in the DSL industry. With the number of DSL subscribers in the United States doubling each quarter during 1999, it has become clear that any carrier considering a serious DSL rollout must act quickly. A window of opportunity will soon close. Those who have not built a DSL business by the end of 2000 will be left behind. By then, there will be over two million active U.S. customers on DSL lines, and virtually every major U.S. city will have installed DSLAMs in its COs. Early-adopter customers who have not been signed up by this time will go to another DSL carrier or to cable modems. Floor space in the most desirable COs will soon be gone, with multiple DSL CLECs competing in each region. Furthermore, mass media marketing of DSL is already underway; any carrier without a DSL brand presence will soon be hard-pressed to compete for mindshare. The stock market values Bell companies at over $2,000 per subscriber; therefore, there are tens of billions of dollars of value at stake over the next three years, as 10 million DSL subscriptions are sold in the United States.

The clear imperative is to deploy a DSL network footprint rapidly and begin provisioning customers on the service. To succeed at this in a competitive environment, allies are needed. Equipment providers can supply an often-overlooked source of support for the carrier. Too often, vendors are thought of simply as a source of NEs or boxes. The wise carrier, however, knows that vendors can be much more.

Services and Support

Network infrastructure providers can supply much-needed project management; engineering, furnishing, installation (EF&I); and support. For a DSL carrier looking for a turnkey, rapid deployment solution, these services are absolutely critical. The expertise of an experienced equipment vendor can fill gaps that a carrier will have with a new technology such as DSL.

Although every telecom gear supplier provides some level of support, the differences are in the details. Every carrier should ask itself the following questions:

• How much experience does the supplier have in project-managing rapid deployment of DSL networks?
• Will your supplier help you design a network that scales and fits your needs?
• To whom has the supplier provided these services before?
• What is the vendor’s EF&I capability?
• How responsive is the carrier support organization?
• Will you dedicate technicians to support your rollout locally?
• Is the support proactive or evident only when you point out problems and issues?
• Will the supplier help with training your employees on the equipment and the technology?
• Is assistance with spare-part management available?
• What is the response time to trouble calls?

Only with this type of information can a carrier entering the DSL arena make an intelligent choice about who to choose as an ally.

Complete Equipment Solutions

Although a DSLAM is the central element in a DSL access network, its usefulness is determined by the other network components that surround it. For example, a subscriber management device, such as a subscriber management system (SMS), can ease the burden of provisioning subscribers on the service. An SMS allows for different users to be easily and flexibly connected to various Internet service providers (ISPs); this is a key functionality for LECs using an ISP resale channel. In addition, an SMS allows for custom portals and content, thus transforming DSL from commodity high-speed access into branded value-enhancing services.

A metallic-layer CO cross-connect device can alleviate many of the costs and delays of DSL deployment and provisioning. Upon attempting to turn up a customer on DSL, a carrier often finds that the service offered will not reach the customer’s premises, as a result of loop length or quality issues. Instead, the user must be moved to a different, lower-speed service, such as IDSL or G.lite ADSL. Without the ability to cross-connect loops remotely in front of the DSLAM, this switch to a new service would require extra truck rolls and technicians’ time. A CO cross-connect allows new users to be turned-up quickly and efficiently on the proper DSL service. In addition, a metallic cross-connect in front of the DSLAM also helps with remotely upgrading users to new services, or with automatically switching loops onto different DSLAM ports in the event of a DSL line-card failure.

VPNs are a very important high-speed access application, critical to the business and teleworker market segments. DSL CPE that can implement VPN functionality must be tested and integrated with CO DSLAM equipment, as well as with network-operations-center (NOC) gear, such as the previously mentioned SMS. A single source for VPN and DSL gear will ease the costs and delays associated with deploying this important application on top of DSL access.

Another key application emerging in DSL today is VoDSL. This delivery of packetized voice to small- and medium-sized entities (SMEs) over a single copper pair is seen as one of the most economically compelling applications of DSL in the upcoming years. However, its success hinges on the quality of the packetized voice, which in turn depends on the overall QoS properties of the DSL/ATM network. A successful rollout of VoDSL requires an end-to-end solution of CPE, DSLAMs, and gateways, which have previously been tested and deployed together in the field. Lab trials will not necessarily locate all of the problems with this type of system; the only way to know for sure that interoperability is seamless is to use a proven solution set.

Another often-overlooked piece of the solution set is customer-care and billing software. There are many software packages available, and a carrier could even make its own. The difference between one that helps rapid DSL deployment versus one that hinders it is how well the software integrates and interfaces with the DSLAM. An ideal DSLAM supplier will be able to supply its own customer-care and billing package, or at least assist the carrier in creating one with an effective visual interface to its network of DSLAMs.

With so many necessary hardware and software elements, a DSL carrier can easily become overwhelmed with systems-integration issues. A vendor that can supply a completely tested and verified network solution provides enormous assistance to the carrier in the midst of a rapid DSL deployment. It does not make sense for a carrier to become mired in testing equipment-interoperability issues, when vendors with broad product lines are already performing this task themselves. Shorter time to market is possible by outsourcing system verification to the test labs of a vendor with a broad product portfolio.

DSLAM Scalability and Management

Today, with the fast proliferation of DSL across the United States, leading carriers have DSLAMs in over 1,000 COs. Within those COs, the number of subscribers are growing at exponential rates. Clearly, scalability of DSL equipment is mandatory for keeping such networks under control. A carrier must be able to manage 1,000 customers out of a CO as easily as a dozen. NE proliferation must be avoided as the customer base grows and more infrastructure equipment is added.

The key issue a carrier must address when selecting a DSL architecture is how the DSLAM scales as the number of active subscribers per CO grows into the thousands. How many subscribers can a DSLAM handle and still be managed as a single NE? It is important not to confuse this metric with the often-quoted figure of number of subscriber ports in a single bay. The number of ports per bay measures the physical density of the system, which is usually made irrelevant by the power restrictions placed by network equipment building standards (NEBS) rules. However, the logical scalability of the system, measured in number of subscribers per managed-NE, is absolutely critical to the manageability of a DSL network as the number of users grows by orders of magnitude.

Field-Proven Equipment

For rapid deployment, there is no time to struggle with bugs and software patches to fix them. For a DSL carrier, a stable and reliable DSL system with at least two years of history supporting revenue deployments is a must. It is important to understand the difference between a customer being the hundredth or the hundred-thousandth customer with service provided by this platform. The difference between deploying and managing a three-month-old platform and a 30-month-old platform is tremendous. In a rapid-deployment phase, there will not be time to iron out the wrinkles. Too many pressing issues will present themselves to a new DSL carrier; fear for the DSLAM and the software that makes it run is an Achilles’ heel. One must look to the equipment provider so as to understand exactly how stable the system is, how much testing it has undergone, and how much time will be spent maintaining it.

Equipment Financing

No carrier should overlook the financial partnership options available with an equipment vendor. For an upstart carrier, equipment financing can make the difference between financial success and failure. Equipment financing can best be considered a source of medium-term financing upon which to rely, even when the capital markets turn down. For an incumbent carrier with significant financial resources, equipment financing can still be attractive, as it leaves capital resources to be spent on marketing, customer acquisition, and customer care in the critical early stages of an exploding market.

Carriers should look to their vendor partners for financial assistance in the form of flexible equipment-financing packages. Generally, these packages will take the form of a lease, but, when appropriate, could even extend beyond a typical lease into the arena of risk sharing. A vendor partner with solid financial strength and experience in DSL rollout financing is an excellent resource for fueling rapid deployment.

Applications, Marketing, and Branding Support

Vendors with experience in high-speed access can also lend a hand with understanding the key applications of bandwidth and how to market them. Furthermore, global vendors know how end-user applications vary around the world. High-speed access enables much more than just faster WWW downloads; other exciting applications exist that can be marketed to drive DSL adoption. A vendor partner will have relevant market research that can help jump-start a carrier’s marketing of DSL.

Eventually, residential DSL service will move to a retail CPE distribution model. When this happens, consumer brand identity will become a critical element in DSL marketing. A vendor with a strong brand image will be a valuable partner in the retail channel. Many customers may first visit their retail store to inquire about DSL, rather than first calling a carrier’s toll-free number. This is a scenario typical of the cellular-telephony market today. In this model, comarketing with a well-known CPE brand will be an invaluable channel for signing up new users.

Furthermore, a leading-edge partner can assist with creating value and differentiation through innovative CPE offerings. To the public, a DSL line will soon become a well-understood and common commodity. However, a carrier will be able to create differentiation via CPE, which provides additional value to the user. For example, wireless LAN CPE can prove valuable to a small business operating in an environment that requires mobility or in an office space that is not prewired for voice and data. Another example is home-networking CPE and other consumer applications that create the residence of the 21st century. DSL is only the entry point to the user’s site; the unique value that will create customer loyalty is in applications.

Vendors as Partners, Not Just Suppliers

A vendor willing to operate as a partner will work with a company to understand its deployment plans and schedules. Equipment order lead times can be minimized by cooperation in this regard. How well a vendor can respond to orders for equipment and how tightly integrated a carriers forecasting will be with the vendor’s manufacturing planning are factors that must be considered. A true partner will work with a carrier to ensure that carrier’s success.

Additionally, a vendor will work with a carrier to make sure that it can support the carrier's company’s strategic plans. Even for a start-up CLEC focused today on DSL, DSL is likely not the only access technology in its future. To broaden their product portfolio and accessible market, carriers will consider also using T1, frame relay, wireless, and POTS as access methods. A vendor working as a strategic partner will help not only with understanding which technologies are appropriate, but also how they can be integrated into the same access platform and management system.

From financing, to project management, branding, and marketing guidance, the overall lesson of this analysis is to think of an equipment vendor as a source of much more than hardware and software. Successful and rapid deployment requires a real partnership between carriers and equipment vendors. There is much more to be gained from a large, experienced vendor than infrastructure equipment.