Single-pair high-speed digital subscriber line

DSL technologies
Standard
ADSL ANSI T1.413 Issue 2
ITU G.992.1 (G.DMT)
ITU G.992.2 (G.Lite)
ADSL2 ITU G.992.3
ITU G.992.4
ITU G.992.3 Annex J
ITU G.992.3 Annex L
ADSL2+ ITU G.992.5
ITU G.992.5 Annex M
HDSL ITU G.991.1
HDSL2  
IDSL  
MSDSL  
PDSL  
RADSL  
SDSL  
SHDSL ITU G.991.2
UDSL  
VDSL ITU G.993.1
VDSL2 ITU G.993.2

Single-pair high-speed digital subscriber line (SHDSL) is a form of digital subscriber line (DSL), a data communications technology that enables faster data transmission over copper telephone lines than a conventional voiceband modem can provide. Compared to ADSL, SHDSL employs TC-PAM modulation and frequencies that include those used by analog plain old telephone service (POTS) to provide equal transmit and receive (i.e. symmetric) data rates. As such, a frequency splitter, or DSL filter, cannot be used to allow a telephone line to be shared by both an SHDSL service and a POTS service at the same time. Support of symmetric data rates made SHDSL a popular choice by businesses for private branch exchange (PBX), virtual private network (VPN), web hosting and other data services.

SHDSL features symmetrical data rates in both the upstream and downstream directions, from 192 kbit/s to 2,312 kbit/s of payload in 8 kbit/s increments for one pair and 384 kbit/s to 4,624 kbit/s in 16 kbit/s increments for two pairs of wires. The reach varies according to the loop rate and noise conditions (more noise or higher rate means decreased reach) and may be up to 3,000 meters. The two pair feature may alternatively be used for increased reach applications by keeping the data rate low. Halving the data rate per pair will provide similar speeds to single pair lines while increasing the error/noise tolerance.

An optional extended SHDSL mode allows symmetric data rates up to 5696 kbit/s on one pair. Higher data rates may be achieved using two or up to four copper pairs.

The SHDSL payload may be either 'clear channel' (unstructured), T1 or E1 (full rate or fractional), multiple ISDN Basic Rate Interface (BRI), Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) cells or Ethernet packets. A 'dual bearer' mode allows a mixture of two separate streams (e.g. T1 and ATM) to share the SHDSL bandwidth.

SHDSL standards

The industry standard for SHDSL is defined by ITU-T recommendation G.991.2. This was first published in February 2001. SHDSL equipment is also known by the standard's draft name of G.SHDSL. Major updates to G.991.2 were released in December 2003. Equipment conforming to the 2003 version of G.991.2 is often referred to by the standard's draft name of G.SHDSL.bis or just SHDSL.bis. The updated G.991.2 features:

SHDSL supersedes the older HDSL symmetric DSL technology defined in ITU-T G.991.1.

In Europe, a variant of SHDSL was standardized by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) using the name 'SDSL'. This ETSI variant is compatible with the ITU-T SHDSL standardized regional variant for Europe and must not be confused with the usage of the term SDSL in North America to refer to symmetric digital subscriber line.

External links