Using the existing voice pair makes ADSL especially well suited for bringing network service to dormitory rooms and student apartments. The very fact that there is telephone service in place to each residence space means that the necessary physical wiring has been done. All that needs to be added to implement ADSL are the desktop electronics in the living quarters and a rack of equipment at an upstream location where the copper pairs from these living spaces are all accessible. The equipment to be installed in the dormitory room or apartment is a cigar box sized modem. The splitter is plugged in to the phone jack, the telephone and the ADSL modem are plugged in to the splitter, and the computer is connected to the data port on the modem.
Some modems come with the splitters built in so that no separate device is necessary.
The user can browse the Internet and talk on the phone at the same time. The upstream data rate for ADSL can be as high as 1 Mbps. G.Lite works at speed up to 1 Mbps downstream and 384 Kbps upstream. Both ADSL and G.Lite operate at lower than their peak speeds on phone lines that are long or have certain other impairments, but these impairments are not likely to be a factor in a campus setting. It connects to the Ethernet port rather than to the serial port of the user's computer.