page_title: Asymmetric digital subscriber line
section_title: Operation
hierarchical_section_title: Asymmetric digital subscriber line / Operation
caption_attribution_description: ADSL frequencies from Fritz! Box Fon WLAN modem, on a Belgian ADSL line (http://www.edpnet.be), distance to DSLAM is 850 m
context_page_description: Asymmetric digital subscriber line is a type of digital subscriber line technology, a data communications technology that enables faster data transmission over copper telephone lines than a conventional voiceband modem can provide. ADSL differs from the less common symmetric digital subscriber line. In ADSL, bandwidth and bit rate are said to be asymmetric, meaning greater toward the customer premises than the reverse. Providers usually market ADSL as an Internet access service primarily for downloading content from the Internet, but not for serving content accessed by others.
context_section_description: Currently, most ADSL communication is full-duplex. Full-duplex ADSL communication is usually achieved on a wire pair by either frequency-division duplex (FDD), echo-cancelling duplex (ECD), or time-division duplex (TDD). FDD uses two separate frequency bands, referred to as the upstream and downstream bands. The upstream band is used for communication from the end user to the telephone central office. The downstream band is used for communicating from the central office to the end user.
  With commonly deployed ADSL over POTS (Annex A), the band from 26.075 kHz to 137.825 kHz is used for upstream communication, while 138–1104 kHz is used for downstream communication. Under the usual DMT scheme, each of these is further divided into smaller frequency channels of 4.3125 kHz. These frequency channels are sometimes termed bins. During initial training to optimize transmission quality and speed, the ADSL modem tests each of the bins to determine the signal-to-noise ratio at each bin's frequency. Distance from the telephone exchange, cable characteristics, interference from AM radio stations, and local interference and electrical noise at the modem's location can adversely affect the signal-to-noise ratio at particular frequencies. Bins for frequencies exhibiting a reduced signal-to-noise ratio will be used at a lower throughput rate or not at all; this reduces the maximum link capacity but allows the modem to maintain an adequate connection. The DSL modem will make a plan on how to exploit each of the bins, sometimes termed "bits per bin" allocation. Those bins that have a good signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) will be chosen to transmit signals chosen from a greater number of possible encoded values (this range of possibilities equating to more bits of data sent) in each main clock cycle. The number of possibilities must not be so large that the receiver might incorrectly decode which one was intended in the presence of noise. Noisy bins may only be required to carry as few as two bits, a choice from only one of four possible patterns, or only one bit per bin in the case of ADSL2+, and very noisy bins are not used at all. If the pattern of noise versus frequencies heard in the bins changes, the DSL modem can alter the bits-per-bin allocations, in a process called "bitswap", where bins that have become more noisy are only required to carry fewer bits and other channels will be chosen to be given a higher burden.
  The data transfer capacity the DSL modem therefore reports is determined by the total of the bits-per-bin allocations of all the bins combined. Higher signal-to-noise ratios and more bins being in use gives a higher total link capacity, while lower signal-to-noise ratios or fewer bins being used gives a low link capacity. The total maximum capacity derived from summing the bits-per-bin is reported by DSL modems and is sometimes termed sync rate. This will always be rather misleading: the true maximum link capacity for user data transfer rate will be significantly lower because extra data are transmitted that are termed protocol overhead, reduced figures for PPPoA connections of around 84–87 percent, at most, being common. In addition, some ISPs will have traffic policies that limit maximum transfer rates further in the networks beyond the exchange, and traffic congestion on the Internet, heavy loading on servers and slowness or inefficiency in customers' computers may all contribute to reductions below the maximum attainable. When a wireless access point is used, low or unstable wireless signal quality can also cause reduction or fluctuation of actual speed.
  In fixed-rate mode, the sync rate is predefined by the operator and the DSL modem chooses a bits-per-bin allocation that yields an approximately equal error rate in each bin. In variable-rate mode, the bits-per-bin are chosen to maximize the sync rate, subject to a tolerable error risk. These choices can either be conservative, where the modem chooses to allocate fewer bits per bin than it possibly could, a choice which makes for a slower connection, or less conservative 
caption: Frequency spectrum of modem on ADSL line
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