1.

Introduction

The past decade has seen extensive growth of the telecommunications industry, with the
increased popularity of the Internet and other data communication services. While
offering the world many more services than were previously available, they are limited
by the fact that they are being used on technology that was not designed for that purpose.

The majority of Internet users access their service via modems connects to the Plain Old
Telephone System (POTS). In the early stages of the technology, modems were
extremely slow by today's standards, but this was not a major issue. A POTS connection
provided an adequate medium for the relatively small amounts of data that required
transmission, and so was the existing system was the logical choice over special cabling.

Technological advances have seen these rates increase up to a point where the average
Internet user can now download at rates approaching 50Kbps, and send at 33.6Kps.
However, POTS was designed for voice transmission, at frequencies below 3kHz, and
this severely limits the obtainable data rates of the system. To increase performance of
new online services, such as steaming audio and video, and improve general access
speed, the bandwidth hungry public must therefore consider other alternatives.
Technologies, such as ISDN or cable connections, have been in development for
sometime but require special cabling. This makes them expensive to set up, and therefore
not have not been a viable alternative for most people.

Asynchronous Digital Subscriber Line technology, ADSL, is a more recent innovation

which dramatically increases user bandwidth with potential for speed increase of more
than a factor of 50. The major attraction is that it is implemented using existing twisted
pair telephone lines, theoretically eliminating the need for installation of special cabling.
This makes ADSL a more cost effective, and hence commercially viable, system for wide
bandwidth data transmission.

2. Overview of ADSL

ADSL has the advantage that it was designed to suit the standard pattern of use of data
networks, which is that significantly more data is downloaded than is uploaded. Hence,
an ADSL implementation gives the incoming stream a large slice of bandwidth, and a
smaller amount is dedicated to duplex communications. In addition, ADSL reserves
bandwidth so that a POTS line can be simultaneously used with the data access service.
This bandwidth division is illustrated by figure 1.

An ADSL channel is divided

into three main sections:

• POTS channel, 4 kHz

wide
 • High bandwidth
downstream channel,
1.5 - 8Mbps wide

• Lower bandwidth
duplex channel,
16kbps - 1Mbps wide
Figure 1: Division of ADSL Channel Bandwidth

The mechanism used for assigning the non-POTS channels can be one of two standards,
Frequency Division Multiplexing (FDM) or Echo Cancellation. FDM assigns each
channel its own section of the frequency spectrum, while Echo Cancellation overlaps the
upstream and downstream sections to create a duplex channel which is separated by the
local echo cancellation technique currently used in the V32 and V34 modem standards.
These systems are demonstrated by figure 2.

Figure 2 : Standards for dividing the ADSL frequency spectrum

Even with this improved scheme of bandwidth use, the question still remains as to how
the limitations of the POTS can be overcome in order to achieve such a high bandwidth.

3. Traditional Bandwidth Limitations

The main factors which limit conventional modem bandwidth to 33.6kbps are not
actually due to the transmission medium itself, but are due to the way it is used. The
telephone network was originally intended to carry voice data only, and early research
revealed that most speech energy occurs below 3500Hz. Thus it seemed reasonable to
only transmit data below this frequency and so interconnection equipment was designed
to carry data in 4kHz channels. This is where the major bandwidth limitation has
occurred, since all data must be transmitted in this narrow channel.

Traditionally, there is a modem at each end of a telecommunications data link, such as

between an ISP and a user, between which the signal propagates in an analog format.
With DSL, the telecommunications carrier also has a modem, allowing it to converts the
data to a more appropriate digital format and transmit it across the network to the
destination, possibly via another DSL link. Since modern technology has made high
bandwidth connections across the telecommunications backbone possible, this eliminate
losses and limitations which previously occurred within the network.

While much of the limitation occurs due to the network implementation, the transmission
medium is not ideal either. There are several factors which must be dealt with to improve
the bandwidth achieved over a twisted pair network :

• Losses due to resistance and other cable characteristics

• Near End Crosstalk, NEXT, is caused by a strong, nearby transmission source

interfering with a receiver.

• Far End Crosstalk, FEXT, is the result of signals coupling into a cable pair at the
far end of the link, but is not a major issue for ADSL systems.

• When a service is connected to the network, this is done by "bridging" existing

lines together to create the connection. If these bridges are not removed from
previous connections, then the result is a transmission line with redundant
branches at various points. For voice transmission this was not a problem, but at
high frequencies these branches can cause reflections that degenerate system
performance.

• Similarly, the telecommunications network is made up of cables of varying

gauges and characteristic impedances. These can also introduce undesired effects
for high frequency applications

• Longer lengths of cable used to be loaded to improve performance of voice

transmission. DSL technology cannot cope with the effects of this, and so it can
only be used on unloaded cable. In most circumstances, this is not a problem.

4. History of DSL

Several variants of DSL have evolved over the years :

• HDSL is the pioneering high speed format, but is not a commercially viable
option due to its need for two twisted pairs and does not have support for normal
telephone services.

• SDSL is symmetric DSL, and operates over a single twisted pair with support for
standard voice transmission. The problem with this system is that it is limited to
relatively short distances and suffers NEXT limitation due to the use of the same
frequencies for transmitting and receiving.

• IDSL stands for ISDN DSL, and is in many ways similar to ISDN technology. It's
disadvantages are the lack of support for analog voice, and that its 128kbps rate is
not much greater than that offered by standard 56kbps V90 modems.
 • VDSL provides very high bit rate DSL, up to 52Mbps, but requires shorter
connections lengths than are generally practical. It has been used in conjunction
with an experimental project, FTTC (Fiber to the Curb), but development in this
area has slowed due to commercial viability issues.

• ADSL is the most promising DSL technology, proving suitable for personal
broadband requirements and allowing for the same channel to still act as a
traditional POTS service.

• Rate Adaptive DSL, RADSL, is a further advancement which is able to

automatically optimise the ADSL data rate to suit the conditions of the line being
used.

5. How ADSL Works

ADSL is a passband system, meaning that it carries its information in one or more
channels above the baseband region of the frequency spectrum. This frees the 4kHz
baseband section for use by standard voice transmission. In order to transmit data at high
rates over a relatively lossy medium, the hardware must implement similar techniques to
those employed by standard modems. This involves sending "symbols" rather than
individual bits, a process known as quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM). ADSL has
two competing standards for implementing this.

The accepted standard, Discrete Multi-Tone (DMT), divides the spectrum into 256 4kHz
channels called bins. Some of these channels are used bidirectionally and require echo
cancelling to prevent corruption, and the rest of the channels are used for downstream
data only. The baseband voice channel is well separated from these, and can be accessed
by use of a simple splitter device. The effect is similar to a standard voice line and a bank
of standard modems operating in parallel to deliver the high bandwidth service, but over
a single twisted pair. This is depicted by figure 3.
 Figure 3: Division of DMT bandwidth
Since many impairments of the twisted pair cable access are frequency sensitive, the
hardware can optimise transfer rates by monitoring the performance of each individual
channel. If the quality degrades, then the bit rate can be reduced on that channel, and
possible reassigned to another channel with a better signal to noise characteristic.
Bandwidth within individual channels can be optimally used with modulation techniques
similar to those employed by traditional modems.

6. Conclusion

For the user, ADSL provides significant advantages. Relative to other technologies, is a
cost effective means of obtaining a high bandwidth data connection. No special cabling is
required and no extra lines are required, since ADSL allows POTS access over the one
twisted pair. The improved bandwidth makes fast Internet access a reality, and allows for
services such as high quality streaming of audio and video, or any other data access
application that may be developed as a result of the technology's availability.