For now, the best bet is the former, even though the RBOCs own the phone wires and vie for the same customers as the DSL competitive local exchange carriers. DSL CLECs are running into a financial pinch right now, but they have wider geographic spreads than individual RBOCs. Plus, the more experienced CLECs are getting good at squeezing the DSL essentials out of the RBOCs, a chore still new to the RBOCs.

As a result, delegating the setup of corporate DSL networks to CLECs can save time and reduce corporate IT staff involvement, both of which translate into cost savings for enterprise customers.

Looking ahead, though, the advantage is shifting rapidly to the RBOCs, as these deep-pocketed behemoths gather speed and ultimately overtake their fast-starting adversaries.

A multilayered service

To set up DSL access to corporate VPNs, enterprise network managers have few options. They can buy DSL lines from the RBOC serving their remote sites, hooking those workers to the corporate site. But coordinating a DSL deployment that involves more than one RBOC, and potentially more than one ISP, can be a hassle. You’ve got to negotiate with the carriers one at a time and hope that you can establish similar monitoring and technical support services agreements with each.

"You’re better off getting someone else to act on your behalf. It saves 15% to 20% in operating costs if you go to one provider rather than many for DSL service," says Steve Sazegari, principal at telecom consulting firm Tele.Mac.

That someone else can be a DSL CLEC that deals with the RBOCs, setting up and delivering the lines. It can be an ISP that works with a DSL CLEC on line delivery. Or it can be a service provider that gets DSL lines through DSL CLECs, then bundles that DSL service with Internet access and network monitoring. Fiberlink, a provider of Internet-based VPNs, is one such company.

Whichever way you go, you’ll probably find that delivery and support could be better. DSL CLECs say the RBOCs - BellSouth, Qwest Communications, SBC Communications and Verizon - purposely drag their feet to slow delivery times.

"Everyone’s hands are tied by the local carrier. If any improvements are to be made, they must take place at the local carrier," says Michael Asmus, a network consultant, who lived through his own four-month DSL-installation ordeal.

Carriers are making progress. A line-sharing method introduced this year should help streamline the process by which CLECs obtain phone lines from RBOCs. Line sharing lets a CLEC run DSL over the same phone line an RBOC is using to provide regular voice service. It’s accomplished using standard DSL and phone equipment, splitting voice channels to the phone network and data to the DSL network. Alternatively, CLECs have to order separate pairs of phone wires just to carry DSL.

Line sharing, which went into use this summer, is expected to become the dominant way DSL lines are provisioned in 2001, CLECs say. Enterprise IT managers will be able to more easily set up and add to telecommuter DSL networks because line sharing will cut the average provisioning time from 35 to 15 days or less, says Vinu Sundaresan, vice president of software engineering for Covad Communications, a struggling CLEC in Santa Clara.

Extended links

DSL CLECs and RBOCs are also in the process of linking their ordering systems. RBOCs have worked out how to let CLECs access their proprietary systems, and these bonded ordering systems are coming online now. When these links are completed, a customer request entered into a CLEC ordering system will be dropped into the RBOC ordering system. CLECs will no longer have to fill out and fax order forms to RBOCs, which in turn enter the order into their systems by hand.

Covad has extended this speedy electronic bonding to customers via a Web interface. Customers can check for DSL availability from www.covad.com and place orders. From the Web, the order passes into Covad’s ordering system and to the RBOC’s. Covad says 80% of its orders come via this method.

These advances will ultimately work to the advantage of the RBOCs, which will probably buy up the DSL CLECs to beef up their own DSL deployment. SBC has bought a share of Covad, and Verizon flirted with buying NorthPoint Communications before backing out last month. More of these RBOC/CLEC pairings are likely to come to fruition in 2001, says Brent Bracelin, a financial analyst with Pacific Crest Securities.

DSL CLECs, once the darlings of Wall Street and venture capitalists, are under pressure to turn big profits quickly. Financing is drying up and CLECs will look more favorably on being bought out than they might have a year ago, he says.

But don’t despair about DSL itself; it will still be around even if you’re getting it from a different carrier than you originally signed with.