BT readies ADSL for corporate teleworkers

BT's internet service provider BTopenworld is to release a 'turnkey' teleworking ADSL package in the next couple of months.

The news follows criticism of its ADSL high-speed broadband internet services, which IT managers don't trust enough to link home users to the corporate network.

They are also unwilling to upgrade their own infrastructure to cope with users having broadband connections, according to Tim Johnson, principal analyst at Ovum.

"Potentially [ADSL] could be very good for teleworking, but the operators haven't made it sufficiently turnkey. There are interface and security issues that IT managers will want resolving before allowing home workers access to the company network through ADSL lines," he said.

BTopenworld has insisted that its teleworker ADSL product can provide secure connections if properly configured with firewalls, and that future versions of the product due in the next few months would recommend and include firewalls at the client end as well as at the central site.

Ken Browning, virtual private network product manager at BTopenworld, told vnunet.com: "There are issues with any public internet connection to a corporate resource. ADSL teleworker, launched three months ago, is essentially a turnkey solution for medium enterprises with less than 100 teleworkers.

"It addresses the issues of security paths from the remote site. The connection between home or branch office and corporate office is a secure connection with the data encrypted through 168-bit standard IPsecdes.

"We still leave it as the company's choice as to what kind of firewall they use at the client end, although we are working toward recommending a solution which will be available shortly once negotiations have been completed.

"As for installation, we supply a project manager to install the lines at the central site and our current aim is that, with up to 100 clients, we will have the last teleworker up and running within 28 days."

Where home workers live in areas where DSL was not available, the firm used IP over ISDN, Browning added. Almost one in five businesses can't get either ADSL or cable, according to recent research by vnunet.com.

Browning explained that, although BTopenworld did not yet have a teleworking product for larger firms, it would do so within a couple of months.

He said that BT had been testing the product with its own home workers in recent weeks, and that the trial was being extended from less than a hundred users to include thousands of BT staff.