Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL) is one form of the Digital Subscriber

Line technology, a data communications technology that enables faster data trans
mission over copper telephone lines than a conventional voiceband modem can prov
ide. It does this by utilizing frequencies that are not used by a voice telephon
e call.[1] A splitter, or DSL filter, allows a single telephone connection to be
used for both ADSL service and voice calls at the same time. ADSL can generally
only be distributed over short distances from the central office, typically les
s than 4 kilometres (2 mi),[2] but has been known to exceed 8 kilometres (5 mi)
if the originally laid wire gauge allows for farther distribution.
At the telephone exchange the line generally terminates at a Digital Subscriber
Line Access Multiplexer (DSLAM) where another frequency splitter separates the v
oice band signal for the conventional phone network. Data carried by the ADSL ar
e typically routed over the telephone company's data network and eventually reac
h a conventional Internet Protocol network.

Currently, most ADSL communication is full-duplex. Full-duplex ADSL communicatio

n is usually achieved on a wire pair by either frequency-division duplex (FDD),
echo-cancelling duplex (ECD), or time-division duplex (TDD). FDD uses two separa
te frequency bands, referred to as the upstream and downstream bands. The upstre
am band is used for communication from the end user to the telephone central off
ice. The downstream band is used for communicating from the central office to th
e end user.
Frequency plan for ADSL. Red area is the frequency range used by normal voice te
lephony (PSTN), the green (upstream) and blue (downstream) areas are used for AD
SL.
With standard ADSL (annex A), the band from 26.000 kHz to 137.825 kHz is used fo
r upstream communication, while 138 kHz 1104 kHz is used for downstream communic
ation. Each of these is further divided into smaller frequency channels of 4.312
5 kHz. These frequency channels are sometimes termed bins. During initial traini
ng, the ADSL modem tests each of the bins to establish the signal-to-noise ratio
at each bin's frequency. The distance from the telephone exchange and the chara
cteristics of the cable mean that some frequencies may not propagate well, and n
oise on the copper wire, interference from AM radio stations and local interfere
nce and electrical noise at the customer end mean that relatively high levels of
noise are present at some frequencies both effects the signal-to-noise ratio in
some bins (at some frequencies) may be good or completely inadequate. A bad sig
nal-to-noise ratio measured at certain frequencies will mean that those bins wil
l not be used, resulting in a reduced maximum link capacity, but with an otherwi
se functional ADSL connection.
The DSL modem will make a plan on how to exploit each of the bins, sometimes ter
med "bits per bin" allocation. Those bins that have a good signal-to-noise ratio
(SNR) will be chosen to transmit signals chosen from a greater number of possib
le encoded values (this range of possibilities equating to more bits of data sen
t) in each main clock cycle. The number of possibilities must not be so large th
at the receiver might incorrectly decode which one was intended in the presence
of noise. Noisy bins may only be required to carry as few as two bits, a choice
from only one of four possible patterns, or only one bit per bin in the case of
ADSL2+, and very noisy bins are not used at all. If the pattern of noise versus
frequencies heard in the bins changes, the DSL modem can alter the bits-per-bin
allocations, in a process called "bitswap", where bins that have become more noi
sy are only required to carry fewer bits and other channels will be chosen to be
given a higher burden. The data transfer capacity the DSL modem therefore repor
ts is determined by the total of the bits-per-bin allocations of all the bins co
mbined. Higher signal-to-noise ratios and more bins being in use gives a higher
total link capacity, while lower signal-to-noise ratios or fewer bins being used
gives a low link capacity.