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The Accesscentral 2000 sits in each central office and can handle
up to 840 subscribers. The vendor supplies a range of modules that
combine data from subscriber lines and shunt it onto a DS-3 or HSSI
(high-speed serial interface) trunk for backhauling to the frame relay
network. At the subscriber end, connections are established by running
SDSL over a single copper pair.
And that SDSL connection can benefit corporate networkers. Why?
SDSL is a lot cheaper to provision. While running T1 requires use of
both copper pairs in a cable, SDSL needs just one. That means carriers
can run twice as many circuits through the same cable.
What's more, SDS
L access lines can extend up to 8,000 feet. With T1
technology, repeaters are needed every 4,000 feet—and that can
get expensive.
But there's more to the savings than the use of SDSL. Because the
Accesscentral sits in all central offices, customer traffic doesn't
have to be backhauled through an expensive TDM (time-division
multiplexer) to get to a distant frame relay switch. It's instead
concentrated at a point closer to the customer's site—and data
from hundreds of subscribers is fed into a DS-3 trunk that connects
directly to the switch.
This also reduces the time it takes for a carrier to provision or
upgrade circuits. After all, a simplified carrier network means fewer
links to configure. AccessLAN says that the carrier can upgrade a
128-kbit/s link to 1.5 Mbit/s in minutes via the vendor's
remote-management software.
And that could add up to some very hefty savings for customers.
AccessLAN says most carriers spend about $2,500 to provision a T1
access line backhauled ov
er the TDM infrastructure—but that use
of Accesscentral could reduce that to $476.
Not So Far
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