"Come Home to DSL"

DSL networks the home
Since the early nineties, Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) technology has been evolving to meet the ever-changing need for connectivity and speed. In the late nineties, that need revolved around improving users' download speeds, and email efficiencies. Today that need has progressed to supporting families, who want instant online access, with all the latest in multi-media content, and services that the Internet has to offer. These families and households need a simple secure solution that serves multiple users efficiently and simultaneously, with speed that keeps up with their daily lives. The answer to their quest: the DSLHome.

DSL Forum forges the path to extraordinary home networks
The DSLHome initiative is a new program being launched by the DSL Forum, the industry consortium dedicated to developing the potential of broadband DSL to benefit the global community. The goal of this program is to empower families and households around the world to adopt DSL, clearly the best broadband solution for home network performance.
• DSL provides the typical family with fast secure connections to the web and/or to virtual private networks, also connecting the teleworker's home office with all the same efficiencies of being in the office.
• Broadband DSL offers ample bandwidth to address the needs of the latest online applications and services, as well as providing options for business quality video conferencing and peer-to-peer networking.
• DSL can be tailored to fit speed and destination requirements, and works well to support multiple users in the home.
• Unhampered by neighborhood traffic in the way cable modems are, DSL offers secure, consistent speed across multiple users in the DSLHome.
The savvy user is attracted to the flexibility and dependability that DSL displays. With more than a billion phone lines in service around the globe, DSL reaches where other broadband technologies could only dream to be.
According to Forrester, 44% of all US online households will have home networks by 2008. But a home network is not enough to make the online home effective. To bring real benefit, productivity and fun to the online family, users need the speed and security to adopt a new lifestyle. The DSLHome initiative provides the framework for confident DSL adoption, and empowers families and households as never before to fully engage in the new world of opportunity. This program has two components; technical innovation and support, as well as market awareness and promotion of the DSLHome.

Technical Innovation makes DSL the best choice for families
To ensure that DSL is the best broadband solution for online families, the DSL Forum has launched a host of new work efforts designed to tailor DSL to families' home networking requirements.
These efforts began with the passing of Technical Report (TR) 37 in 2002, which provides the framework for simple modem auto-configuration. The new work items in development are:
WT-076 Security for Auto-Configuration
WT-082 LAN side DSL CPE Configuration Specifications
WT-083 Interface & System Configuration for ADSL, Customer Premises (Update to TR-007)
WT-086 Dual Port Router Requirements
WT-087 WAN side DSL CPE Management Specifications
WT-088 update to TR-037
There are also discussions about support requirements for WLAN hot spots. It is clear with this effort that security, ease of set up and maintenance, and productivity as well as connectivity are addressed, making DSL the prime choice for the savvy home networker.

The industry embraces DSL as the answer to the need for speed
When the DSL Forum began developing this initiative, many key organizations lined up to lend their support. These organizations are assisting development by providing requirements, and acting as a voice into their relative industries, sharing the progress and best practices that will move the networked home forward. These organizations are:
• Broadband Content Delivery Forum (BCDF)
• Consumer Electronics Associations (CEA)
• European Competitive Telecommunications Association (ECTA)
• International Engineering Consortium (IEC)
• Internet Home Alliance
• HomePlug
• HPNA
• NTCA
• OPASTCO
• United States Telecom Association (USTA)
• Wi-Fi Alliance

The Future revolves around DSL evolution
The DSL industry is looking to the future, when innovative applications will demand greater bandwidth, new appliances will go online, and the family will depend more and more on being connected and active on the net. Today a host of DSL options are positioned to meet these needs.
• ADSL2 & ADSL2plus, which are new standards that extend the reach and speed of ADSL, physically bringing DSL to more people around the globe.
• Very High Bit Rate DSL (VDSL), which is currently experiencing a huge take up in South Korea, where over half a million customers in 2002 went online with VDSL.
• SHDSL, a newly standardized symmetrical service that is especially attractive to the business community.