Adtran Revs ADSL Services For Small Businesses

Colorado Springs, Colo. - Adtran Inc. is bringing ADSL-2 and ADSL-2+ services to its line of routers in two ways. In addition to upgrading modules for its existing enterprise routers, Adtran is launching the NetVanta 300 series of fixed-port routers, with the NetVanta 340 as its initial member, featuring one ADSL network interface and one Ethernet interface.

The two follow-on services to the original asymmetric digital subscriber line increase both the line reach and the speed of ADSL, supporting bandwidths as high as 25 Mbits/second. While data transport was once considered the likely driver for such speeds, the aggregation of voice-over-Internet Protocol now is of primary interest to many of Adtran's small-business customers, said Eric Lewis, product manager at the Huntsville, Ala., company. Consequently, the new release of the Adtran operating system for NetVanta includes a Session Initiation Protocol application layer gateway, with enhanced features aimed specifically at VoIP.

The Adtran OS Version 8.1 has a standard feature pack that includes support of BGP4 routing protocols, asynchronous transfer mode interfaces for ADSL, network address translation (including Session Initiation Protocol voice transversal of NAT), stateful-inspection firewall and DHCP server/client. Adtran also offers an enhanced feature pack that supports up to five virtual private network tunnels using Internet Protocol Secure. The tunnels can be based on the Data Encryption Standard, Triple-DES or Advanced Encryption Standard crypto protocols.

For existing Adtran customers of the 1000, 3000 or 4000 series of larger routers, Adtran will introduce a network interface module that combines a single ADSL interface with an option of dial backup using analog or ISDN lines. The ADSL module can be used in the 3305 or 4305 routers as a high-speed disaster recovery link to provide disaster redundancy in the event of a primary-link failure.

List price for the NetVanta 340 router is $395, while the enhanced feature pack is $50 extra. The ADSL network interface module is $300. Adtran OS 8.1 is free to existing router customers, downloadable from the Adtran Web site. Lewis said that more members of the NetVanta fixed-port family can be expected in the future.