Searching For A Broadband Boost
Sydney Morning Herald
Tuesday December 11, 2001
DSL reliability has prompted head scratching, reports Nicole Manktelow.
Loving the technology but hating the teething problems corporates and end users alike are trying various approaches to bring the promise of Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) to its full potential.
An Australian company is patenting technology it claims will overcome some of the country's broadband glitches, highlighted earlier in the year by a spate of disruptions to the major DSL network operated by Telstra.
The managed service provider Bulletproof Networks (www.bulletproof.it) has created software and management systems that it says will make DSL just as reliable as any other kind of connection in a virtual private network.
``It allows for us to manage business customers' Internet connectivity so it does what it should," marketing director Lorenzo Modesto said.
``We still recommend DSL as the best value for money high-speed connection for business customers, even with the reliability issues of a few months ago.
``The technology ensures that a business customer's connection is always up, secure and centrally managed, so that the customer can keep working even if there is an outage."
Outages have kept such user community Web sites as Whirlpool (www.whirlpool.net.au) spinning with comments and criticism some of which may prove constructive if a small band of forum regulars get their way. About 30 participants are pooling their ideas and resources for the Community Broadband Project essentially an online think-tank for DSL and other broadband issues (www.bvc .com.au).
Organiser and software developer Don Gould said: ``While companies such as Telstra would like to deliver a smooth end-to-end solution, the technology and the infrastructure isn't at that point yet. That's why we're seeing failures, faults and excuses. So we're asking people to get involved ... Ask not what your broadband provider can do for you, but what you can do for the broadband community."
Many of the volunteers have technical expertise or work within related industries.
``The skills and resources they've got are considerable,' Gould said.
``We want to focus them to do something productive with that knowledge."
Members of the group are working on software for an improved billing system, partly to show that it can be done and partly to prod providers into improving their systems. Other volunteers are evaluating equipment for a coming pilot project at a Sydney apartment block involving wireless technology.
Their plans may be ambitious, but such involvement is a clear indication of demand for quality broadband that comes from businesses and individual users.
For managed service providers such as Bulletproof, the promise of pain-free connections could be a lucrative business. The company's new software and management systems become available to clients this month.
Bulletproof's Internet Lifeline is gateway software that its creators say will guarantee redundancy of a broadband connection. It monitors connections and swaps smoothly from primary to secondary links if an outage occurs.
``The primary link is usually ADSL, ISDN, HDSL or traditional leased line. The secondary link is usually ISDN or analogue modem," Modesto said.
``The software allows for the server to automatically cut between the two as it needs to, as well as alerting us via pager or SMS."
The company's Centralised Remote Configuration Management System, which is also patent pending, allows for many servers to be remotely and centrally managed. It includes software that allows for both the standard version-controlled configuration as well as the specific individual server configuration to be stored centrally.
``It also allows remote server rebuilds, such as might be needed in the event of disaster recovery," Modesto said.
cole@auscape.com.au
© 2001 Sydney Morning Herald