The operation of ADSL is not always perfectly understood by subscribers to a box offer, who nevertheless take advantage of it every day to surf the web, call their friends or watch TV. What are the characteristics of this technology?
Internet by ADSL: how does it work!
The term ADSL is an acronym for the expression “Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line”. ADSL technology, to work, simply uses the pair of copper wires from your good old telephone line (or “local loop”), but using a frequency band different from that of the telephone, which therefore allows these services to operate simultaneously.
Subscribing to an ADSL offer involves installing a modem (most often today in the form of a “box”), connected to your telephone socket, and which can provide Internet to your devices via a network wireless wifi or wired ethernet connection.
ADSL and VDSL: what is the difference?
ADSL has seen improvements over the years. Since 2004, some dispatchers have been offering ADSL2 or 2+, which can bring the theoretical downlink speed up to 25 Mbits/s. More recently, VDSL2 (Very High Speed Digital Subscriber Line 2) has further improved the performance of the technology by taking advantage of very high frequencies (8 to 30 MHz) for even better throughput (up to 80 Mbits/s). It is therefore an interesting alternative to optical fiber in many sectors.
Advantages and disadvantages of ADSL
The main advantage of ADSL technology today is its very wide availability, since more than 99% of French households have access to at least one offer from an Internet service provider. The so-called “triple play” ADSL offers are particularly interesting since they include both high-speed Internet access, a telephone line and television via ADSL with sometimes several hundred channels with unlimited access.
ADSL has the weakness of a lower speed than Very High Speed or Fiber to take full advantage of the entire web simultaneously, and in particular video content. The homes furthest from their telephone distribution frame are those who suffer from the lowest speeds, sometimes below the 1 Mbit/s threshold.
What is unbundling?
In order to allow competition, the various Internet access providers rent from the incumbent operator Orange/France Télécom access to the 15,000 telephone dispatchers spread over the territory: a technical manipulation makes it possible to dissociate (unbundle) the traditional telephone subscription, which remains a monopoly, and the provision of Internet access. Unbundling your telephone dispatcher therefore quite simply allows you to choose between several providers.
To find out if you are eligible for an unbundled ADSL offer, you can carry out an eligibility test free of charge on the La Poste Mobile site at this address:
