ADSL and DSL Technologies

An exploration of the standard that the author hopes will be the "next big thing" in Internet telephony. The author traces the history of the acronym-happy industry to its humble beginnings in the days when humans did the switching to show the evolution of the technology. Along the way he covers the architecture of the public switched telephone network (PSTN), digitizing the PSTN, ISDN, packet switching, the xDSL family of technologies, and HDSL 1 and 2. The second half of the book covers ASDL, DSLAM, VDSL, international issues and xDSL, and current issues in DSL. Appends information about the online ADSL Forum. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.