SDSL reaches Glasgow

Businesses based in Glasgow are being offered the chance to sign up for a broadband service that provides two-way high-speed connectivity.

Scotland On Line announced on Thursday that it is launching a 2Mb SDSL (symmetrical digital subscriber line) service in Glasgow, based on a wholesale SDSL product supplied by Fibernet.

Businesses should be able to get connected to the new service within one month, and the company also plans to offer SDSL in Edinburgh in the future.

"The launch of this new SDSL service has the potential to deliver enormous benefits to businesses in Glasgow and, ultimately, across the whole of the Scottish business community," said Dr Richard Callison, chief executive of Scotland On Line, in a statement.

"We have heard a great deal in recent months about the advantages on offer via different broadband services -- now is the time for the vision to become reality," Callison added.

Unlike ADSL -- which is significantly slower upstream than downstream -- SDSL is equally fast in both directions. This makes it more suitable than ADSL for businesses that need to send large amounts of information across the Internet -- such as small branch offices who need to upload customer records and firms that are hosting data.

Fibernet, which is providing wholesale SDSL in Glasgow after unbundled some of the city's local telephone exchanges and installed its own equipment, is aiming to eventually provide SDSL to over 150,000 businesses across the UK.

"We are delighted to take this one step closer to ensuring that Scottish businesses within these regions benefit from advanced services denied to ADSL users, including Content Provision, Virtual Private Networking, ASP service delivery, native voice services and LAN extension services, by being the first to partner with Scotland On Line to deliver SDSL to our Scottish customers," said Charles McGregor, chief executive at Fibernet.

Scotland On Line says it is the first IT provider to offer SDSL to businesses in Scotland, but fellow ISP edNET claims to have been offering SDSL in Edinburgh since 1999.

BT does not offer commercial SDSL services, but it announced earlier this month that is beginning an SDSL trial.

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