Creating a local area network in office buildings has traditionally been an effective way of giving users high-speed connections to the Internet, letting them share the bandwidth of a T1 or other fat connection pipe. Taking that networking paradigm into a residential setting, CAIS Internet is launching a service today that promises high-speed Internet connections over standard telephone lines, which can be used simultaneously for phone calls and Web surfing.
The OverVoice system uses existing phone lines connected through special phone jacks and a centralized hub to create an Ethernet network in multi-unit housing complexes. Users connected to the service will have a dual phone/data line that offers two-way data speeds that could range from 1.54 Mbps (a T1 connection) to 10 Mbps (the limit for Ethernet on a T3 line), according to Ulysses Auger II, president of CAIS Internet.
"This is the enabling technology to make the Internet like the telephone, which created mass appeal and use because it was always on," said Auger. "Now the Internet will always be on, and you'll know when you get an email just like when the phone rings."
Expected to cost about US$40 or $50 per month, the system is pitted as a direct competitor to ADSL technology being offered by telephone companies and cable-modem setups from cable-television providers.
The only PC hardware required to connect to the OverVoice system is a standard Ethernet card. In a residential building, the OverVoice system is composed of two specialized components: custom wall jacks and an Ethernet hub with an "aggregator." The wall jack has plugs for a PC and phone, and uses a filter to route the voice and data signals along different paths over the twisted-pair wiring. The Ethernet hub - located in a centralized phone closet - uses the aggregator to transmit the voice and data through the T1 line simultaneously, but on different frequencies. As capacity in any one building begins to fill up, bigger lines - or even fiber-optic cables - could be added to increase the overall bandwidth.
"Ethernet allows users to access the [phone] line as browsers access a high-speed line in an office ... most of the time employees experience a full T1 line because they only [connect] for an instant. It's a wonderful economy of sharing," said David Goodman, who developed the technology for CAIS.
CAIS officials pointed to a few of the advantages of the system, including the ability to have multiple jacks in a house, which could be used simultaneously to talk on the phone and connect to the Web.
