Reaching Out: New Customers, New Applications
by Sigurd Schelstraete and Kenneth Madison,
Ikanos Communications, Inc
The base of broadband customers is proliferating worldwide. That growth and a host of new applications are spurring greater demand for bandwidth. To meet customer needs, service providers are faced with the choice of fork-lifting the existing copper infrastructure and replacing it with expensive fiber, or squeezing the last bit of bandwidth out of their installed copper lines. Because profit margins are dwindling, many service providers are shying away from making huge investments in fiber. Instead, they are choosing channel bonding as an economical solution to the bandwidth crunch problem. By bonding more than one DSL line, service providers can offer multiples of basic line rates to customers -- depending on the number of bonded pairs -- without incurring any additional infrastructure costs. Bonding two copper pairs enables service providers to offer triple play services to customers who are located at longer distances from the fiber termination point (Central Office[CO], or Remote Terminal), thus increasing the number of customers served and hence the return on investment (ROI). Bonding four to eight pairs can provide a viable alternative to costly T1/T3 leased lines for enterprise customers.
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