• silicon.com
• Technology
• Networks

By Barbara Morgan, 2 July 1999 14:50

NEWS US R&D specialist, Telcordia, has developed a technology that can quickly test telephone lines to determine whether they can or cannot support DSL speed. Telcordia - formerly Bellcore, an R&D company jointly funded by several US telephone companies until it was spun off - has begun selling a service based on the technology to telcos and Internet service providers (ISPs). It would not say in what countries it had made sales, although it confirmed there were customers. The company also declined to reveal the cost and said it would be up to service providers to decide whether or what to charge their own customers. The new service, called Sapphyre Loop Qualification Service, uses patent-pending algorithms to determine within five minutes whether a phoneline can handle the DSL technology and speed.
Sapphyre enables a carrier to focus resources on the loop qualification of interested customers when they are ready to sign-up, rather than wasting money testing lines just in case there might be customers in a given location. Bobbi Rentko, director in charge of the programme at Telcordia, said: "With Sapphyre, a service provider can target interested customers and sign them up post-test almost immediately." Features include Instant Answer which gives carriers immediate feedback on their loops' ability to support ADSL, ISDN and other copper-based broadband services, and InstantOrder, which allows customers to order the service as soon as Instant Answer determines that the loop is qualified. Elisabeth Rainge, networking analyst at IDC, said: "Because Sapphyre allows providers to simultaneously focus on customer research, deployment and marketing, this offering will help to accelerate the rapid deployment of DSL - all of which is crucial in the early phases of the market."