Lightning Speed It's a bird, it's a plane, it's DSL!

Still waiting to switch to a high-tech digital subscriber line(DSL)? Consider this: DSLs are quickly growing in popularity amongcost-conscious businesses, according to a report by Cahners In-StatGroup, a leading industry research firm.

"Few in the industry expected their leap to be of such CarlLewis proportions," explains Rick Miller, senior analyst withCahners In-Stat Group. The report indicates that of the roughly5,000 ISPs in the United States, close to 31 percent claim to offerDSLs. And at the close of 1999, ISPs had deployed approximately1.35 million unique, revenue-generating DSLs.

In an effort to compete with cable and phone companies forcustomers, ISPs are rushing to roll out the technology, whichpro-vides for Internet connections many times faster than 56 Kbpsmodems. According to the report, the only thing slowing the growthof DSLs is the inability of modem makers to keep up withdemand.