MODULE 07

DSL,DSLAM

 Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) is a very high-speed connection that uses the same wires as a regular telephone Line to connect to the Internet and transport high-bandwidth data, such as multimedia and video, to service subscribers. Despite its name, DSL does not refer to a physical line but to a modemor rather a pair of modems. A DSL modem pair creates a digital subscriber line.

Digital Subscriber Line

DSL
DSL modem transmits duplex (i.e., data in both directions simultaneously) at 160 kbps over copper lines of up to 18,000 feet. DSL modems use twisted-pair bandwidth from 0 to approximately 80 kHz which precludes the simultaneous use of analog telephone service in most cases (see

Figure)

DSL

Advantages of DSL
You can leave your Internet connection open and still use the phone line for voice calls. The speed is much higher than a regular modem (1.5 Mbps vs. 56 Kbps) DSL doesn't necessarily require new wiring; it can use the phone line you already have. The company that offers DSL will usually provide the modem as part of the installation.

Disadvantages of DSL
A DSL connection works better when you are closer to the provider's central office. The connection is faster for receiving data than it is for sending data over the Internet. The service is not available everywhere.

Capacity of DSL
Telephone installation consists of a pair of copper wires that the phone company installs in your home. The copper wires have lots of room for carrying more than the phone conversations They are capable of handling a much greater bandwidth, or range of frequencies, than that demanded for voice. DSL exploits this "extra capacity" to carry information on the wire without disturbing the line's ability to carry conversations.

xDSL The term xDSL covers a number of similar yet competing forms of DSL, including ADSL, SDSL, RADSL, and VDSL. xDSL is drawing significant attention from implementers and service providers because it promises to deliver highbandwidth data rates to dispersed locations with relatively small changes to the existing telco infrastructure.

xDSL
xDSL services are dedicated, point-to-point, public network access over twisted-pair copper wire on the local loop ("last mile") between a network service providers (NSP's) central office and the customer site, or on local loops created either in intra-building or intra-campus. Currently the primary focus in xDSL is the development and deployment of ADSL and VDSL technologies and architectures

DSL Connectivity

Forms of xDSL
Asymmetric DSL (ADSL) ADSL technology is asymmetric. It allows more bandwidth downstream--from an NSP's central office to the customer site--than upstream from the subscriber to the central office. Symmetric DSL (SDSL) - This connection, used mainly by small businesses, doesn't allow you to use the phone at the same time, but the speed of receiving and sending data is the same. Rate-adaptive DSL (RADSL) - This is a variation of ADSL, but the modem can adjust the speed of the connection depending on the length and quality of the line. Very high bit-rate DSL (VDSL) - This is a fast connection, but works only over a short distance.

ADSL
Out of these DSLs, we will look at ADSL in more detail this Module. ADSL divides up the available frequencies in a line on the assumption that most Internet users look at, or download, much more information than they send, or upload. ADSL transmits more than 6 Mbps to a subscriber, and as much as 640 kbps more in both directions Such rates expand existing access capacity by a factor of 50 or more without new cabling. ADSL can literally transform the existing public information network from one limited to voice, text, and low-resolution graphics to a powerful, ubiquitous system capable of bringing multimedia, including full motion video, to every home.

The components of a ADSL network include a telco and a CPE.

ADSL
An ADSL circuit connects an ADSL modem on each end of a twisted-pair telephone line, creating three information channels-- a high-speed downstream channel, a medium-speed duplex channel, and a basic telephone service channel. The basic telephone service channel is split off from the digital modem by filters, thus guaranteeing uninterrupted basic telephone service, even if ADSL fails. The high-speed channel ranges from 1.5 to 6.1 Mbps, and duplex rates range from 16 to 640 kbps. Each channel can be submultiplexed to form multiple lower-rate channels.

ADSL- Data Rates

ADSL modems provide data rates consistent with North American T1 1.544 Mbps and European E1 2.048 Mbps digital hierarchies and can be purchased with various speed ranges and capabilities. The minimum configuration provides 1.5 or 2.0 Mbps downstream and a 16 kbps duplex channel; Others provide rates of 6.1 Mbps and 64 kbps duplex. Products with downstream rates up to 8 Mbps and duplex rates up to 640 kbps are available . ADSL modems accommodate Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) transport with variable rates and compensation for ATM overhead, as well as IP protocols.

Downstream data rates

Downstream data rates depend on a number of factors, including the length of the copper line, its wire gauge, presence of bridged taps, and cross-coupled interference. Line attenuation increases with line length and frequency and decreases as wire diameter increases. Ignoring bridged taps ADSL performs as shown in the Table.

ADSL Data Rates As a Function of Wire and Distance

Data Rate (Mbps) Wire Gauge (AWG) Distance (ft) Wire Size (mm) Distance (km)

1.52.0 1.52.0 6.1 6.1

24 26 24 26

18,000 15,000 12,000 9,000

0.5 0.4 0.5 0.4

5.5 4.6 3.7 2.7

ADSL Technology
There are two competing and incompatible standards for ADSL. The official ANSI standard for ADSL is a system called Discrete Multitone, or DMT. An earlier and more easily implemented standard was the Carrierless Amplitude /Phase (CAP) system, which was used on many of the early installations of ADSL.

 CAP operates by dividing the signals on the telephone line into three distinct bands: Voice conversations are carried in the 0 to 4 KHz (kilohertz) band, as they are in all POTS circuits. The upstream channel (from the user back to the server) is carried in a band between 25 and 160 KHz. The downstream channel (from the server to the user) begins at 240 KHz and goes up to a point that varies depending on a number of conditions (line length, line noise, number of users in a particular telephone company switch) but has a maximum of about 1.5 MHz (megahertz). This system, with the three channels widely separated, minimizes the possibility of interference between the channels on one line, or between the signals on different lines.

CAP

CAP

DMT
DMT also divides signals into separate channels, but doesn't use two fairly broad channels for upstream and downstream data. Instead, DMT divides the data into 247 separate channels, each 4 KHz wide. One way to think about it is to imagine that the phone company divides your copper line into 247 different 4-KHz lines and then attaches a modem to each one. You get the equivalent of 247 modems connected to your computer at once!

DMT

DMT
Each channel is monitored and, if the quality is too impaired, the signal is shifted to another channel. This system constantly shifts signals between different channels, searching for the best channels for transmission and reception. In addition, some of the lower channels (those starting at about 8 KHz), are used as bidirectional channels, for upstream and downstream information. Monitoring and sorting out the information on the bidirectional channels, and keeping up with the quality of all 247 channels, makes DMT more complex to implement than CAP, but gives it more flexibility on lines of differing quality.

Low Pass Filters

CAP and DMT have one thing in common They use small filters attached to the outlets that don't provide the signal to the ADSL modem. These filters are low-pass filters -- simple filters that block all signals above a certain frequency. Since all voice conversations take place below 4 KHz, the low-pass (LP) filters are built to block everything above 4 KHz, preventing the data signals from interfering with standard telephone calls.

DSL Equipment
ADSL uses two pieces of equipment, one on the customer end and one at the Internet service provider, telephone company or other provider of DSL services. At the customer's location there is a DSL Transceiver, which may also provide other services. The DSL service provider has a DSL Access Multiplexer (DSLAM) to receive customer connections.

DSL Transceiver
Most residential customers call their DSL transceiver a "DSL modem." The engineers at the telephone company or ISP call it an ATU-R. Regardless of what it's called, it's the point where data from the user's computer or network is connected to the DSL line.

DSL Transceiver
The transceiver can connect to a customer's equipment in several ways, though most residential installation uses USB or 10 base-T Ethernet connections. While most of the ADSL transceivers sold by ISPs and telephone companies are simply transceivers, the devices used by businesses may combine network Routers, network Switches or other networking equipment in the same platform.

DSLAM
A digital subscriber line access multiplexer (DSLAM) delivers exceptionally high-speed data transmission over existing copper telephone lines. A DSLAM separates the voice-frequency signals from the high-speed data traffic and controls and routes digital subscriber line (xDSL) traffic between the subscriber's enduser equipment (router, modem, or network interface card [NIC]) and the network service provider's network

DSLAM
The DSLAM at the access provider is the equipment that really allows DSL to happen. A DSLAM takes connections from many customers and aggregates them onto a single, high-capacity connection to the Internet. DSLAMs are generally flexible and able to support multiple types of DSL in a single central office, and different varieties of protocol and modulation -- both CAP and DMT, for example -- in the same type of DSL. In addition, the DSLAM may provide additional functions including routing or dynamic IP address assignment for the customers.

DSLM

DSLAM
The DSLAM provides one of the main differences between user service through ADSL and through Cable modems. Because cable-modem users generally share a network loop that runs through a neighborhood, adding users means lowering performance in many instances. ADSL provides a dedicated connection from each user back to the DSLAM, meaning that users won't see a performance decrease as new users are added -- until the total number of users begins to saturate the single, high-speed connection to the Internet. At that point, an upgrade by the service provider can provide additional performance for all the users connected to the DSLAM.

To Internet

 This first one shows you how your home is hooked up to the internet via DSL. CO stands for central office. There are over 30000 central offices in the US, each responsible for phone service (and now potentially, DSL service) for a small region indicated here by the green area. These regions are not as you might expect, circles drawn around a CO office on a map, but follow property street or county boundaries, so tend to be quite straight-sided.

 The blue cloud is network interconnecting many different locations (such multiconnected networks are always represented as clouds in network diagrams), this cloud may be entirely Telco owned, or run, or could be owned by a CLEC, or a combination of both. It is not, however, the Internet. The internet starts at the ISP, and beyond the ISP, its internet provider.

 This next diagram is of a basic ADSL (a common form of residential DSL) in a home. The splitter depicted here is a small box that strips off the phone signal from the line from the Telco, and leaves the data (indicated by the red shaded lines), to be routed to the data equipment, on RJ11 (phone) inside wires.

ADSL with Splitter

A DSL setup, with a filter instead of a splitter, allows the data and telco voice signal to flow through the house phone wires, but filters it from the telephone or fax machines.

What is RADIUS ? RADIUS is the Remote Access Dial-In User Service, an Authorization, Authentication, and Accounting clientserver protocol. RADIUS is the de facto industry standard for remote access AAA (Authentication, Authorization, Accounting) , as well as an IETF standard. In general, it's a network daemon (network process) which performs authentication, authorization and accounting actions when someone login on a Network Access Server with a dial-up client or logout from it. Typically RADIUS server is used by Internet Service Providers (ISP) to performs AAA tasks, but frequently, it's useful in a case when your need to provide any kind of controlled dial-up access in your organization

 Radius - Refers to a common protocol used by many network appliances (such as terminal servers) to send authentication requests and/or accounting details. A Radius client can be a program running on a PC, or a piece of hardware such as a Dialup Server/NAS (more common). When a user attempts to login to a Dialup Server which supports radius, the dialup server sends a request, using the radius protocol, to the Radius server (an application running on a computer). The server then checks if the authentication details given are valid, and if so sends a reply to the dialup server (client), which indicates the user is valid. The server also takes this opportunity to send along any attributes such as session timeouts, and ip addresses which should be assigned to the user.

 The dialup server would permit the login as well as enforce the appropriate attributes. Once the user disconnects, the dialup server would send an accounting packet to the server, which the server might store in a log file or database.

 Accounting - This refers to the accounting information sent back from the NAS, containing information about the session such as user details, session time, and bytes transferred.

NAS - Network Access Server, a system that provides access to a network. In some cases also know as a RAS, Remote Access Server. Commonly refers to a terminal server which sends authentication and/or accounting information to a Radius server.
RAS - Remote Access Server. In most cases, exactly the same as a NAS.

 PAP - Peer Authentication Protocol - passwords are transmitted in cleartext

CHAP - Challenge Authentication Protocol - passwords are transmitted encrypted, along with a challenge which is used (alongside a locally stored plaintext password), to decrypt the supplied password.
MySQL - A popular SQL database program which can be found here. It is a common source for retrieving and storing records. Perl - A interpereted language. Popular for writing text and web based applications, but certainly not limited to those tasks.

 SQL - Structured Query Language, a commonly used language by many databases such as Oracle, MySQL and PostgreSQL as a way for accessing and storing data in a database. This uniformity often means that applications which talk to a database via SQL can be converted to a database with little or no modification.

Attributes - In the world of Radius attributes refer to settings both defined in the config files and, those passed between the radius client and server (such as the 'User-Name' attribute, or 'Framed-IP-Address' attribute).
Terminal Server - A server which handles logins of some kind, including but not limited to a dialup server for handling users connecting via modem.