Digital Subscriber Line, or DSL, is a family of technologies that provides digital data transmission over wires used in the "last mile" of a local telephone network. Typically, the download speed of DSL ranges from 128 kilobits per second (Kbps) to 24,000 Kbps depending on DSL technology and service level implemented. Upload speed is lower than download speed for ADSL and symmetrical for SDSL.
Hardware
The subscriber end of the connection consists of a DSL modem. This converts data from the digital signals used by computers into a voltage signal of a suitable frequency range to be applied to the phone line.
In the early days of DSL, installation required a technician to visit the premises. A "splitter" was installed near the demarcation point, from which a dedicated data line was installed. Today, many DSL vendors offer a self-install option, in which they ship equipment and instructions to the customer. In this case, because no changes are made to the cable plant on the customer premises, all phone wires are carrying both POTS and DSL signal frequencies. Therefore, customers generally need to plug a DSL filter into each telephone outlet. However, this can sometimes cause degradation of the DSL signal (especially if more than 5 analogue devices are connected to the line) because the DSL signal is present on all telephone wiring in the building. A way to circumvent this problem is to install one filter upstream from all telephone jacks in the building, except for the jack to which the DSL modem will be connected. Because this requires wiring changes by the customer and may not work on some (poorly designed) household telephone wiring, it is rarely done. It is much easier to install filters at each telephone jack in use. In the past, establishing new cable modem or satellite broadband service generally did require a visit by a technician to the premises, but this too has changed. Cable companies now deploy self install kits which enable their customers to get set up without a truck roll.
At the exchange, a digital subscriber line access multiplexer (DSLAM) terminates the DSL circuits and aggregates them, where they are handed off onto other networking transports. It also separates out the voice component.
Protocols & Configurations
Many DSL technologies implement an ATM layer over the low-level bit stream layer to enable the adaptation of a number of different technologies over the same link.
DSL implementation may create bridged or routed networks. In a bridged configuration, the group of subscriber computers connect into a single subnet. The earliest implementations of the bridged configuration used DHCP to provide network details, such as the IP address, to the subscriber equipment, with authentication via MAC address or an assigned host name. Later implementations often use PPP over Ethernet or ATM (PPPoE or PPPoA), while authenticating with a user id and password and using PPP mechanisms to provide network details.
DSL also has contention ratios which need to be taken into consideration when deciding between broadband technologies.