Digital Subscriber Lines

Digital Subscriber Lines (DSL)

We are now entering the twilight zone! Do you remember the days of playing telephone with a string tied between two cans? A lot of fun but didn’t take any imagination! Would Thomas Edison’s vision for the telegraph and telephones reached this far? It is mind-boggling to think what can be done with phone lines these days. Because of the “air highway” we not only talk over these tiny filaments of wire, we send typewritten messages and even pictures and videos. The Internet has exploded communication between cities, states and the world. The purpose of this article is to define what digital subscriber lines is and how they work.

DSL installations began in 1998 and will continue at a greatly increased pace through the next decade in a number of communities in the U.S. and elsewhere. DSL lines can carry both data and voice signals and the data part of the line is continuously connected.