I had to chuckle the other day when I saw two articles about DSL that were going in opposite directions. In the first announcement AT&T announced that they are phasing the TV product out of their U-verse product. The same day I saw an announcement from Frontier that they are entering the video-over-DSL business in a big way.

The technology that is being used in both cases is paired DSL. This means putting DSL onto two copper phone lines and then using them together to create one data path. Under ideal conditions, meaning perfect copper, the technology can deliver about 40 Mbps through about 7,000 feet of copper. But of course, there is very little perfect copper in the real world and so actual speeds are typically somewhat slower than that.

In AT&T’s case this change makes sense. They purchased DirecTV and they are going to use the satellite platform to deliver the cable TV signal. This will free up the DSL pipe to be used strictly for data and VoIP, and this will extend the competitive ability of the DSL technology. In most cases the company can deliver 20 Mbps – 40 Mbps to homes that are close enough to a DSLAM. I’m sure that AT&T has been finding it increasingly difficult to deliver data and cable together on one DSL pipe.

The downside for AT&T is that not everybody can get DirecTV. Some people live where they can’t see the satellite and many people in apartments aren’t allowed to stick up a dish. So this isn’t a perfect solution for AT&T, but the increased data speeds probably mean a bigger potential customer base for the U-verse product.

Frontier is coming at this from a different direction. The company has seen declines in revenue as voice customers continue to drop off the network and as they continue to lose DSL customers to cable companies. The company saw a 1% decline in revenue just in the fourth quarter of 2015.

To try to generate new sales the company just announced this week that they are entering the business that AT&T is abandoning. The company launched IPTV in the 4^th quarter of last year and announced that they are going to extend this to 40 other markets and pass 3 million customers with the product. They are going to use the same paired DSL as AT&T U-verse and will offer video on the DSL.

Frontier is hoping that this move, which will give them the triple play bundle will bring in more broadband customers and bolster both revenues and the bottom line. The company also expects to get a nice bump from finally closing on their purchase of Verizon properties in Texas, Florida and California. It is going to be a busy year for the company as they also hope to add 100,000 new broadband customers this year for the first of six years of an expansion funded by the CAF II funds from the FCC.

I have a lot of sympathy for a company like Frontier. They have purchased a lot of rural markets that have been neglected for years by Verizon and which don’t have very good copper. Where many smaller telcos are converting all of their rural areas to fiber, Frontier does not have access to the capital needed to do that, nor would they want to suffer through the earnings hit that comes from spending huge amounts on capital.

But the problem for all DSL providers is that within a few years the demand for broadband speed is going to exceed their capabilities. The statistic that I always like to quote is that household demand for broadband speeds doubles about every three years. This has happened since the earliest days of dial-up. One doesn’t have to chart out too many years in the future when the speeds that can be delivered on DSL are not going to satisfy anybody. The CAF II money is only requiring DSL that will be at least 10 Mbps download, which is already inadequate today for most families. But even the 20 – 40 Mbps paired-DSL is going to feel very slow when cable companies have upgraded to minimum speeds of 100 Mbps or faster. And if that DSL is also carrying video along with the data it’s going to feel really slow. I would not want to be one of the companies still trying to make copper work for broadband a decade from now.