Without going into the entire history of telephony decentralization (i.e. the break up of Ma Bell/AT&T into RBOCs in 1984 and the subsequent TA96), the major telephone companies dread the competition which is on the horizon in the form of Competing Local Access Competitors (CLECs), Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and Intralata Exchange Carriers (IXCs which are also now becoming CLECs), because with the increased demand in data services (i.e. connecting to the Internet) and the emergence of superior, miniaturized and all-encompassing networking and computing technologies and consumer offerings the giant RBOCs are finding it hard to keep up with the hundreds of little guy start-ups which are beating them at their own game.

Moreover, networking over the phoneline and broadband access technologies have drastically improved in the last couple of years and phone and ISP companies alike would like to sell them. The biggest concern here is how do you do just that? How do you educate the consumer about the need for speed? At the same time, most companies in this area, both new and old, are attempting to beat the competition with all-in-one One-Stop shopping services, so that consumers can purchase their entertainment, wired telephony, wireless, Internet access, pager and cable TV services from one company.

The biggest battle being waged is over the race to be the sole provider of high-speed bandwidth to the residential consumer, basically only exit off the information superhighway into your home.

ADSL Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line. A method for moving data over regular phone lines. An ADSL circuit is much faster than a regular phone connection, and the wires coming into the subscriber's premises are the same (copper) wires used for regular phone service. DSL Digital Subscriber Line. A family of related "broadband over phone wire" technologies

• AT&T
• US West
• GTE
• Bell Canada
• Bell Atlantic
• Sprint
• Covad Communications
• Convergent Network

Tut Systems