Germany’s computer technology magazine c’t recently participated in DTAG‘s first consumer T-DSL test, and says the it achieved very high transmission rates (768kBits/s)– when it was working.
Whether the system will have the capacity to handle thousands of simultaneous logins remains to be seen, however.
The test was spoiled by a series of breakdowns. When the dial-in computer went down, despite the assistance of service engineers from just about every department, DTAG was unable to restore the connection.
DTAG is charging DEM 98 (US$52.27) per month for T-ISDN DSL service. This provides the consumer with a downstream bandwidth of 768 kilobits per second and 128 kilobits per second upstream. An additional DEM 99 or 149 (US$52.8-79.5) is charged for Net usage at 50 and 100 hour packages.
The two options are known as ‘T-Online Speed 50’ and ‘T-Online Speed 100’. While marketing experts at Telekom call this system ‘mixed costing’, c’t editor Johannes Endres said that a better description might be “a straightjacket model.”
The T-DSL offering appeals to power users and small user groups who share bandwidth. From 70 hours per month, T-Online Speed 100 surfing is clearly a better deal than T-Online via ISDN. A favorable Internet-by-call offer adds to deal, aside from the advantage of data transmission rates 9 to 10 times faster.
AOL Germany is currently in talks over ADSL access with its online service. UUNET also has plans which include this option, and Mannesmann Arcor starts its pilot project in December.
