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| ADSL Factsheet – September 2002 | |
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This fact sheet provides a history of the rollout of Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) products and gives an update on current progress and upcoming developments. ContentsProgress update – an update of the major advances over the past month and upcoming developments. Annex A – History of ADSL Annex B – Products Annex C – Technology Annex D – Investigations
This update focuses on progress made in the last month and is not intended as a complete overview of ADSL roll-out. References to operators (OLOs) are to companies, other than BT or Kingston, which operate telecommunications systems. Service Providers (SPs) are companies that provide telecommunications services to third parties, eg consumers. The Annexes attached to this fact sheet give further information on DSL and are arranged according to subject area.
1. Roll-out BT
* Amended from 1,014 at the request of BT. Although 66% of households may be in areas served by ADSL-enabled exchanges, not all households in these areas will be close enough to the exchanges to receive ADSL service. BT has estimated that, on average, 95% of households in an exchange area are close enough to receive ADSL, reducing the total ADSL coverage to 63%. Kingston All of Kingston’s exchanges in the Hull area are now enabled to deliver ADSL.
2. Take up (as at end of August) BT: ~357,000 Kingston: ~10,000
3. Developments Community Broadband trial: BT is to trial a new ‘community’ broadband concept at sites in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The trial makes use of smaller exchange equipment (known as mini DSLAMs) and the existing copper links between smaller exchanges and BT’s backbone network to offer ADSL services to as few as 16 subscribers. ADSL Registration scheme: Todmorden in West Yorkshire has become the first exchange to reach its target level for enabling. 200 consumers have registered interest with ISPs and BT is now awaiting confirmation that 75% of these registrations have been turned into firm orders for ADSL services. BT has also announced target levels for a further 257 exchanges during August, bringing the total to 595 exchanges that now have target levels. A further 74 exchanges were surveyed but BT has concluded that the costs were such that it was not realistic to set trigger levels, given the number of lines served. Bulk Telephone Number checker launched: BT has launched a bulk number checking facility to enable ISPs to pre-check potential customers ahead of targeted marketing campaigns. The service allows lists of numbers to be submitted for qualification against line length and exchange status. The service is charged at £750 (ex VAT) per CD, with up to four million numbers per CD. BT IPStream minimum term: BT has reduced the minimum term for its IPStream S and IPStream 500 products from 12 months to 90 days. This change applies to all new and existing IPStream S and IPStream 500 lines. One-to-Many Domain name option: BT has launched a One-to-Many Domain name option for its IPStream service. The option allows one Domain name to be mapped to a group of BT Central links, allowing for greater resilience. BT DataStream restructure: BT has announced plans to introduce a range of Virtual Path (VP) bandwidths on its DataStream Home and Office services from 12 October 2002. In addition to the 4Mbit/s VP currently on offer, service providers will be able to order 256kbit/s, 512kbit/s and all 1Mbit/s intervals between 1Mbit/s and 10Mbit/s. BT will also introduce two additional VP ATM service classes that will enable service providers to offered combined voice and data over ADSL. BT IPStream 500 withdrawal – update: BT previously announced plans to withdraw its IPStream 500 product from new supply in August 2002. In light of continuing demand, BT has now decided to delay this withdrawal from new supply until Q3 of 2002/03. BT plans to support existing IPStream 500 users for at least a year, though plans to migrate them to IPStream Home thereafter. TotalCare/CustomCare trial: BT has begun the trial of a chargeable enhanced maintenance option for end users, offering extended working hours and committed fault response timescales. Phase one of the trial will cover CustomCare, offering repair visits between 8:00-20:00 (Mon-Sat). Phase two will cover TotalCare, offering 24 hour coverage, seven days a week. The care options will be available on BT IPStream S and Office and BT DataStream Home and Office for a charge of £10 per end user per month. There will be no charge during the first month of the trial. The trial is due to last for six months, with the service due for full launch early next year. Satellite trial: BT is currently trialing a one-to-many high-speed Internet satellite service that allows Service Providers to reach customers who are out of range of normal ADSL services. The service provides download speeds of up to 256kbits/s via a satellite dish, with higher speeds of up to 4Mbit/s available on demand.
Annex A – HistoryBT took a commercial decision to roll out ADSL products. Oftel has been involved in monitoring rollout to ensure that BT complies with its legal obligations under the Competition Act 1998 and the terms of its Licence. BT must not, for example, unduly prefer its own SP business.
Kingston took a similar decision at the start of October to roll out ADSL products. All of Kingston’s exchanges in the Hull area are enabled to deliver ADSL and Oftel will ensure that Kingston complies with its legal obligations under the Competition Act 1998 and the terms of its Licence when offering ADSL products.
Annex B – ProductsBT
wholesale products
Kingston
wholesale products
There are currently over 280 customers taking these products from BT and Kingston. These include local authorities and large firms who are using the products as part of their internal networks as well as service providers and other operators who are using the products to offer services to residential and business customers. There are approximately 40 service providers offering services to residential customers and 70 offering services to business customers.
Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL) technology transforms a normal telephone line into a high-speed digital line that enables access to telephony services and the Internet at the same time. ADSL provides always-on, always-available access to the Internet at speeds that are ten to 40 times faster than a standard 56k modem. ADSL service is specific to an individual line therefore if an end user moves address, they will need to take a new ADSL service – it cannot be transferred. ADSL is normally only available to those living within 3.5km of an ADSL-enabled local exchange, but this can be extended to 5.5km for rate adaptive variants of the products. Rate-adaption is achieved through relaxing the line qualification limits, enabling the upstream path (away from the End User) to rate adapt to between 64kbit/s and 250kbit/s depending on distance from the exchange and traffic levels. The downstream speed (into the End User) remains the same at up to 500kbit/s, providing continued high speed Internet downloads. G.DMT services are ‘wires-only’ variants of wholesale DSL products. BT will continue to provide the network elements, ie the wires, with the service provider supplying the end-user equipment, such as the modem. This is one step towards an ‘off-the-shelf’ modem/CPE product. Self-install products are the step beyond G.DMT. They will enable end-users to purchase CPE ‘off-the-shelf’ and install it themselves, eliminating the need for engineer installations.
Annex D – InvestigationsBT’s ADSL roll-out was a commercial decision. However, since BT announced its roll-out plans, Oftel has been involved in monitoring roll-out to ensure that BT complies with its legal obligations under its Licence and the Competition Act 1998. This monitoring process involves having weekly working level meetings and monthly high-level meetings with BT. Kingston has also introduced retail and wholesale ADSL products.
Oftel has also conducted a number of investigations into allegations of anti-competitive behaviour. Some investigations were the result of industry complaints, others have been initiated by Oftel itself. More detailed descriptions of most of these cases can be found in Oftel’s Competition Bulletin, which is published on a quarterly basis. Click on the case title to view the respective Competition Bulletin entry. (Please note, not all cases will have been published in the Bulletin yet).
Current cases Oftel currently has no ADSL cases under investigation.
Closed cases (vi) Alleged margin squeeze on the business products (vii) Wholesale DSL Terms and Conditions & Service Level Agreements (ix) Special offer investigation (x) Alleged passing of confidential information to BT Openworld
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