General ADSL

Q: What is ADSL, how does it work and how fast is it? 

• Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line "ADSL" converts the existing twisted-pair copper telephone wire into an instant high-speed link for Internet access and multimedia applications. To increase the available bandwidth from twisted-pair copper phone lines, ADSL utilizes a wider frequency band, which is used to carry voice (4 kHz) to achieve high-speed throughput. As a result, ADSL is capable of using Plain Old Telephone Service (POTS) to transmit data at rates of up to 8 Megabits per second (Mbps) downstream and 640 kilobits per second (kbps) upstream. This is 100 times faster than traditional V.90 analog modems when downloading from the Internet. 

• The Telephone Companies (Telcos) try to guarantee a minimum ADSL service connection rate. This requirement may restrict service to only customers living 15K feet (or closer) from the CO.