Do we really know what ADSL is? It means Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL), a kind of modem based technology which basically uses the same twisted pair cables but this time to split them into multiple high-speed data communication bands or channels (to say it simply). We can get a total of approximately 800 kbps up and down traffic running into each channel and at maximum it gives almost around 6Mbps data transmission capacity to a single subscriber. This would means that with our old fashioned cables we would not get excellent speed as the circuit will be equally split between your data and voice.

When speaking of voice, which is vey essential these days, ADSL provides a good solution and functionality for those areas which are still not having high speed internet access. Not just that, ADSL can be used anywhere at anytime as long as the Internet Service Provider supports it. Therefore in short, we can say ADSL has redefined the way people find there necessities for Voice, data, multimedia, streaming etc fulfilled. We can say for sure this technology will stay around us for next 10 to 15 years as long as telephone companies would be around with same POTS (plane old telephone system) technology.

But to keep one thing in mind as broadband is picking up in the market, it has opened new ways of ADSL usage as more and more demand is growing for multimedia, video & audio and online streaming. ADSL is already picking up on these markets and will make sure the renovation in technology continues to grow as these profit making markets must be satisfied at all cost. Looking forward to the ADSL capabilities one should understand the following very clearly:

There is an ADSL circuit which interns connects to an ADSL modem using a RJ-11 or RJ12 connector creating 3 channels, a downstream high-speed channel, a medium duplex channel and a POTS connection or ISDN connection for regular phone usage. The POSTS channel is separated at the telephone exchange level itself and another one at the subscriber end which guarantees dedicated and separate channels for data and phone each. Incase the ADLS is going through downtime at the telephone exchange side, atleast your phone keeps working un-interrupted.

A high speed channel would range from approximately 1.5 to 6 Mbps and a duplex channel would range from 16 to 832 kbps. Normally in European markets, an ADSL would provide 1.5 to 2 Mbps downstream and normally a 16 kbps duplex channel. The max a service provider can go upto is 8 Mbps with 640 kbps reserved for duplex control. The best way to get more bandwidth is to compress the service which eats up more like a video streaming. Majority of ADSL provider uses video compression techniques with some kind of error correction mechanism which gets video to the user 100% all the time. Any error occurring during the transmission will be correctly immediately.

All these features have made ADSL a big success these days and continued research is going on day-by-day for its improvement.