Such obstacles are a source of frustration to both customer and provider alike. OpenDSL and DSL Forum are industry wide organizations dedicated to the deployment of DSL services. OpenDSL encourages pre-certification testing, allowing manufacturers to test and debug their equipment prior to release. OpenDSL contends that such a procedure will reduce cost to the end user and ultimately increase profits for the manufacturers. There are a number of solutions currently underway.
Interoperability is essential to the rapid deployment of services.
In addition, several companies are exploring ways to extend the reach of DSL services. DSL Forum demonstrated a number of these options last week at CES 2001 in Las Vegas. Interoperability is key in both speeding deployment and easing the pain of self-installation. For example, a customer of a particular ISP that shall remain nameless recently received the self-installation kit, followed the directions completely, and yet was unable to connect to the Internet. In addition, the company's server was down, thus the help technician could not tell him whether the problem could be attributed to incompatible equipment or the company's faulty network.