Voice over DSL trial passes muster

Medical transcription firm sees technology as way to streamline.

By Tim Greene
Network World, 11/29/99

SYRACUSE, N.Y. - Voice over digital subscriber line may be the prescription Medical Transcription Solutions of New York needs to streamline its telecommunications operation.

After a one-month trial, voice over DSL checks out as a way to reduce the tangle of phone lines coming into the company's headquarters, according to Bill Bigelow, Medical Transcription's vice president.

Because it was a technical trial, whether the service saves money remains unclear.

Rather than lease 42 separate analog phone lines supporting one phone call each, the company could support the 42 voice channels on just six phone lines using voice over DSL. Those same lines could be used simultaneously to carry data. While voice over DSL uses fewer wires for the same number of phones, the costs depend on how much the carrier charges per phone connection.

"I think that could be a very useful application," Bigelow says.

Voice over DSL turns voice into ATM cells at the customer site and sends them over the DSL data stream. At the carrier switching office, the voice is separated from the data and converted back to regular circuit-switched voice. It is then delivered to the public phone network.

In the case of Medical Transcription's service, Choice One Communications delivered the voice over DSL service via a Jetstream integrated access device (IAD) at Medical Transcription's headquarters. The IAD supported eight telephones as well as an Internet connection.

The traffic was combined by the IAD, and fed down the DSL line to a Choice One DSL multiplexer in the local Bell Atlantic switching office. It was then piped back to Choice One's own switching office where the Internet traffic was sent to the Internet and the voice was converted and dropped onto the regular phone network.

The technology is attractive to Bigelow because his business depends on phones for voice and data. Doctors dial in to transcription machines to record patient medical records. Transcribers in Syracuse, N.Y., transcribe the recordings to make written medical records.

During the test, Bigelow found no difference between the voice quality on the DSL lines and those on a regular analog phone.

With voice over DSL cutting the number of phone lines into Medical Transcriptions' headquarters, the company could save the recurring monthly cost of $30 per line and also add more lines for less money. Currently it costs $135 to get a new line installed, he says. If a single DSL line can handle eight voice channels, but is not fully loaded yet, more channels can be added via network provisioning without having to string new wires, he says.

Choice One has not set prices on its service, which the company plans to roll out by the end of the first quarter of 2000. Options may include offering less expensive voice channels or offering the voice at a price on par with regular phone lines and tossing in Internet access for free, says Kevin Dickens, Choice One's senior vice president of engineering and operations.

Meanwhile, Bigelow is sold on DSL. He wants to install it in all his transcribers' homes and use a separate voice option - voice over the Internet - to connect them to the main office. Now they have to dial directly and pay toll fees as high as $800 per month. He says voice-over-the-Internet quality will be key to whether the option is viable. Choice One is working out a technical trial of the voice-over-the-'Net option, Bigelow says.