Digital Subscriber Line

Generic name for several digital phone lines, which have in common the use of the line for transferring data and voice conversations at the same time, high data transfer rate and are actived only when you actually use them (same idea of regular phone lines, where it is used only you get the phone off the hook, contrary to what happen to lines like T1 and E1, where the connection is available 24/7 even if no data is being transferred).

xDSL technologies differ from each other as use, transfer rate and necessary equipment. The most famous ones are ADSL, SDSL, HDSL, RADSL and VDSL.