Our office park is fed from Verizon using an AT&T SLC96. The use them a lot around here, though most newer pair gain installations are using equipment made by other manufacturers. I have been receiving conflicting information in these locations from Verizon. Their technicians refer to them interchangably as "RTs" or "pair gain" as well.

The issue is that DSL isn't available here, or so I have been told. We are clearly WAY too far from the CO for traditional copper (about 8 miles) so just about everything is using some form of pair gain equipment. This is where my question begins:

Isn't a SLC96 just a glorified channel bank? If so, I would think that it just takes in a T1 and emulates 24 analog circuits, correct? If this is true, it would explain their inability to pass the DSL signal. Have they come up with cards to retrofit the SLC96 to provide a remote DSLAM? It just seems that there is too much inconsistency since I know of locations in the same CO that are further out that can get DSL.

This is more of a curiosity question than anything since most customers here in our complex are going with T1/PRI or cable modem for their Internet access.

Ed Vaughn, MBSWWYPBX