Ericsson is to provide China Telecom with Asymmetric DSL (ADSL) lines across five cities in Anhui Province, mostly for residential subscribers. The ADSL lines will be delivered using Ericsson's new ultra-compact, scalable Ethernet DSL Access solution, a cornerstone of Ericsson's Public Ethernet offering. The solution enables standard ADSL lines to be offered economically at smaller sites (starting from eight subscribers) and uses Ethernet technology to provide very cost-effective high-bandwidth links in the 'second mile' network.

China is experiencing strong demand for ADSL. China Telecom already has 1.5 million ADSL subscribers, and hopes to have two million by the end of 2002, and four million in 2003. 

Ove Anebygd, Head of Broadband Access at Ericsson commented, "It's good to get such powerful confirmation that our Public Ethernet vision is the right one. Operators like China Telecom know that there is pent-up demand for DSL out there. Now we're offering them a cost-effective, low-risk way to satisfy that demand for always-on bandwidth."

Ericsson's Ethernet DSL Access solution enables fixed network operators to deploy the required second-mile bandwidth at less than half of the cost of equivalent ATM-based bandwidth. By avoiding concentration in the DSLAM and connecting directly to an Ethernet aggregation network, the new solution opens up the possibility to support high bandwidth-demanding services without DSLAM bottlenecks, while at the same time reducing transport costs ten-fold. This dramatically alters the economics of rolling out DSL and enables operators to address the 'second wave' of broadband subscribers profitably, following the initial early-adopter wave.

A key advantage of providing DSL services in this way is that existing standardized DSL interfaces are unchanged. The subscriber simply uses a standard DSL modem, which the Ethernet connection from the PC or LAN plugs into in the normal way.