DSL Forum Publishes Tech Reports

PRAGUE -- The DSL Forum's 10th anniversary meeting in Prague last week demonstrated how industry co-operation can drive DSL interoperability to facilitate next generation networks and applications, and fuel the take-up of home networking. DSL Forum's newly approved Technical Report (TR) specifications - TR-092 and TR-094 - are now available at: http://dslforum.org/aboutdsl/tr_table.html .

TR-094 "Multi-Service Delivery Framework for Home Networks" defines the Forum's DSLHome* home networking architecture and sets requirements that optimise a home network to take advantage of the full capabilities of manifold broadband access services. The architecture permits multiple users within the home to simultaneously run multiple applications and devices with differing connectivity requirements quality of service (QoS). Demonstrations of how this new architecture enables the applications of today's networked home will be given at the DSL Forum's DSLHome showcase at Broadband World Forum in Venice (20-24 September 2004), and further down the road at CES in Las Vegas in January. With the focus on home networking and distribution of applications throughout the home, the DSL Forum is engaging with other associations such as the Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) and Universal Plug'n'Play Forum (UPnP) to initiate collaborative efforts with the industry to deliver the infrastructure for emerging triple and quad play applications for consumers.

TR-092 provides specific guidance on all the technical aspects of broadband remote access server equipment (BRAS - pronounced B-RAS) that is a key element of the globally accepted TR-059 architecture. Of the list of hundreds of requirements, the BRAS associates specific QoS appropriate for a particular application, so video and voice services, in addition to data, can be delivered in a sharper and clearer manner. The document defines the platform for integration of various access technologies covering functionality, size and scaling for the number of customers and interfaces, features and services to support emerging mass-market and business applications. This new Technical Report has been submitted to the International Telecommunications Union - Telecommunications (ITU-T) Next Generation Network (NGN) focus group as a basis for contribution to its forthcoming recommendations on next generation networks.

President of the DSL Forum, Tom Starr, says: "DSL has consistently increased its share of the global broadband market. At 31 March, 2004 it had captured around 65 per cent with 73.4 million subscribers and demonstrated growth at twice the pace of other broadband access technologies. While fast internet access continues to be the primary driver of first-time take-up for homes and businesses around the world, end users quickly discover the many other applications and benefits of broadband DSL, leading to demand for more sophisticated services from security surveillance to high quality entertainment."

Equipment interoperability continues as a focus area for the DSL Forum with testing plans in development for higher bandwidth and symmetric DSL technologies to support the accelerating global mass-market. The Forum's current series of 'plugfests' at the University of New Hampshire (UNH) testing laboratories provides the opportunity to verify interoperability between multiple chipsets and systems supporting ADSL2 and ADSL2plus. Overall, 17 CPE and 14 DSLAM vendors have participated, with testing including diagnostics mode, online reconfiguration and power management mode. Three further plugfests will be held in 2004: one in conjunction with ETSI, and two for ADSL2 and ADSL2plus at UNH.

"At every one of our quarterly meetings, we achieve further milestones on the way to facilitating ubiquitous global broadband access, led by DSL as the most effective, stable and efficient technology platform for the mass-market. Our latest TRs go further than ever before, in addressing the full end-to-end requirements of the DSL enabled networked home or business," Starr continued.

DSL Forum