digital subscriber line

2 definitions found

digital subscriber line - WordNet (r) 2.1 (2005) :

  digital subscriber line
      n 1: a generic name for digital lines that are provided by
           telephone companies to their local subscribers and that
           carry data at high speeds [syn: digital subscriber line,
           DSL]

digital subscriber line - Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (26 May 2007) :

  Digital Subscriber Line
  Digital Subscriber Loop
  xDSL
  
     <communications, protocol> (DSL, or Digital Subscriber Loop,
     xDSL - see below) A family of digital telecommunications
     protocols designed to allow high speed data communication
     over the existing copper telephone lines between end-users
     and telephone companies.
  
     When two conventional modems are connected through the
     telephone system (PSTN), it treats the communication the
     same as voice conversations.  This has the advantage that
     there is no investment required from the telephone company
     (telco) but the disadvantage is that the bandwidth available
     for the communication is the same as that available for voice
     conversations, usually 64 kb/s (DS0) at most.  The
     twisted-pair copper cables into individual homes or offices
     can usually carry significantly more than 64 kb/s but the
     telco needs to handle the signal as digital rather than
     analog.
  
     There are many implementation of the basic scheme, differing
     in the communication protocol used and providing varying
     service levels.  The throughput of the communication can be
     anything from about 128 kb/s to over 8 Mb/s, the communication
     can be either symmetric or asymmetric (i.e. the available
     bandwidth may or may not be the same upstream and
     downstream).  Equipment prices and service fees also vary
     considerably.
  
     The first technology based on DSL was ISDN, although ISDN is
     not often recognised as such nowadays.  Since then a large
     number of other protocols have been developed, collectively
     referred to as xDSL, including HDSL, SDSL, ADSL, and
     VDSL.  As yet none of these have reached very wide
     deployment but wider deployment is expected for 1998-1999.
  
     (http://cyberventure.com/~cedpa/databus-issues/v38n1/xdsl.html).
  
     2Wire DSL provider lookup (http://2Wire.com/).
  
     ["Data Cooks, But Will Vendors Get Burned?", "Supercomm
     Spotlight On ADSL" & "Lucent Sells Paradine", Wilson & Carol,
     Inter@ctive Week Vol. 3 #13, p1 & 6, June 24 1996].
  
     (2001-04-30)