Fibernet starts wholesale DSL pilot

Wholesale digital subscriber line (DSL) services are to be deployed in a pilot scheme for users in four major UK cities, bypassing the debacle over unbundling the local loop.

While UK companies are waiting for BT and Oftel to get their acts together, telecoms provider Fibernet is offering its TANetAccess DSL service to customers in Reading, Leeds, Birmingham and Manchester.

The system is designed to support carriers, internet service providers (ISPs) and application service providers (ASPs) that want to extend their services via DSL technology. TANetAccess is based on the TANet nationwide fibre optic backbone and offers data and voice telephony over IP.

The services use symmetric DSL (SDSL) technology, and Fibernet said that the latest version has been specifically designed for the UK's unique regulatory environment.

Nigel Pitcher, marketing director at Fibernet, said: "We don't see why enterprise customers should have to shoehorn their data into networks designed to carry voice. Fibernet integrates data, voice and video onto a single managed network."

The company claims that the updated SDSL will provide a 20 per cent distance/performance improvement over competing DSL technologies.

Charles McGregor, chief executive at Fibernet, said that the pilot DSL programme would provide a test bed for carriers, ISPs and ASPs to prepare their own products and services for deployment as unbundling progresses to a "satisfactory conclusion".

Separately, NTL has said that it could offer wholesale asymmetric DSL (ADSL) services, but a spokesman said that it was unlikely.

"If BT delays the roll out of ADSL, we could approach rival telcos and offer wholesale ADSL services. But if we are the only company with ADSL, that gives customers a reason to come to us. If we sell it to other telcos, it would give them a selling point against us," he said. First published in Network News

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