Alcatel-Lucent Delivers “Green” DSL with Less Power Use

July 6, 2009

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Enabling service providers to deliver services over installed copper cabling, Alcatel-Lucent has unveiled the fourth version of its high-capacity and eco-efficient digital subscriber line (DSL) platform that provides more bandwidth while consuming up to 25 percent less power compared to conventional DSL solutions.

Leveraging the reduced power consumption of its latest generation of DSL line cards, its unique distributed DSLAM concept and Smart DSL technology, Alcatel-Lucent claims the Intelligent Services Access Manager (ISAM) is the world’s first green DSL and first commercially-available DSL platform for ETSI markets that delivers 50 Mbits to all users — with peaks up to 100 Mbits — anywhere in the network.

Earlier this year, the networking giant introduced a new feature called Dynamic Power Save (DPS), as an add-on to its GSM/EDGE mobile networking portfolio. DPS is touted as capable of reducing power consumption by up to 27 percent.

However, Lightreading.com is questioning the networking giant’s “world’s first green DSL” claim. According to Lightreading.com, Alcatel-Lucent might be the first to claim a particular set of efficient attributes, but it’s not the first broadband access equipment company to have announced a “green” product.

In addition, Lightreading.com reports that the 25 percent-less-power claim comes not from a test of the ISAM against alternative broadband systems, but it’s based on whether an operator chooses to activate a power-saving L2 Power Mode function on the ISAM platform or not.

Thomas Kallstenius, director of product marketing at Alcatel-Lucent’s wireline networks business, said in the article that implementing L2 Power Mode can cause noise on the broadband line when a modem is woken out of its “sleep” mode after a period of inactivity, which causes a mini power surge on the line.

To address the problem, Alcatel-Lucent has combined the Layer 2 Power Mode with the Smart DSL capability, which is said to stabilize a DSL line by introducing low-level noise that masks the “crosstalk” that can deplete a DSL line’s available bandwidth by up to 30 percent, reports Lightreading.com.

By integrating the Smart DSL into the ISAM and combining it with L2 Power Mode for ADSL2+ deployments, it cancels out the power fluctuations, reduces crosstalk, and keeps the network more stable, reports Lightreading.com.

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