What is DSL?

Acronym for Digital Subscriber Line or Digital Subscriber Loop, often referred to as xDSL. It is medium for transferring data over regular phone lines and can be used to connect to the Internet. However, like a cable modem, a DSL circuit is much faster than a regular phone connection, even though the wires it uses are copper like a typical phone line.

A common configuration of DSL allows downloads at speeds of up to 1.544 megabits (not megabytes) per second, and uploads at speeds of 128 kilobits per second. This arrangement is called ADSL: Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line. theoretically ADSL allows download speeds of up to 9 megabits per second and upload speeds of up to 640 kilobits per second. DSL is often seen as the new, better alternative to the Leased Lines and ISDN.