designfeature By Ting Sun, 2Wire Inc

EVEN IN A SPLITTERLESS ADSL, FILTERING IS

STILL NECESSARY TO ENSURE HIGH-FREQUENCY SIGNAL
REJECTION AND TO PERFORM AN IMPORTANT
IMPEDANCE-BLOCKING FUNCTION.

Microfilter design promises

peaceful coexistence between
ADSL and the voiceband
he current asymmetrical-digital-subscriber- to locations inside the house at which the end user

T line (ADSL) standard, or T1.413 issue 2/G.DMT, can perform the installation (Figure 1).
incorporates a plain-old telephone system A microfilter design capable of operating with
(POTS) splitter in both the remote terminal and the both G.Lite and full-rate ADSL requires much more
central office to separate the voiceband from the DSL isolation between the ADSL transmission medium
spectrum (Reference 1). Thus, ADSL deployment to and POTS appliances to minimize impedance
residential customers usually requires professional changes and the nonlinear and intermodulation ef-
installation of a splitter, hence the resulting carrier fects that appear at the POTS connection. For a full-
“truck roll.” The emerging splitterless ADSL stan- rate, splitterless ADSL application, more than 25 dB
dard, commonly known as G.Lite, eliminates the of attenuation beginning at 25 kHz is desirable; for
need for a POTS splitter and allows rapid mass de- splitterless G.Lite, the filter-attenuation requirement
ployment of DSL technology by
avoiding the truck roll in many
cases (see sidebar “The ADSL
Figure 1 MODEM COMPUTER
goal of splitterless ADSL”).
However, approximately 80%
of homes in a recent field trial of
LOWPASS COMPUTER
G.Lite required one or more so- MODEM
FILTER
called “microfilters”—small low-
pass filters that replace the large
splitter filters—to eliminate ob-
TELEPHONE- HOME-
jectionable phone noise or severe COMPANY TELEPHONE
POTS LOWPASS
TELEPHONE
modem performance degrada- DSLAM WIRING FILTER
LOCAL LOOP (ADSL+POTS)
tion. Installing these lowpass fil-
ters at each phone computer mo-
dem, fax, and answering machine POTS LOWPASS FAX
FILTER
to eliminate potential noise or in- NOTES:
ADSL=ASYMMETRICAL-DIGITAL-SUBSCRIBER LINE.
terference between POTS devices POTS=PLAIN-OLD TELEPHONE SYSTEM.
and the ADSL modem is neces- DSLAM=DSL-ACCESS MULTIPLEXER.
sary in most cases. These micro-
filters are, in essence, distributed
splitters; they move the filtering A typical ADSL splitterless installation configuration at home uses home wiring
function from outside the house and incorporates lowpass filters at every device that connects to the phone line.
www.ednmag.com December 9, 1999 | edn 55
designfeature Microfilter design
can be somewhat less stringent because
of the reduced ADSL transmit-
Figure 2
ting power. Proper filtering also
eliminates the need for dynamic bit re-
loading in modulation, eliminates the
need for retraining, and may even pre-
vent the loss of the modem connection.
Making the filter reversible eases instal-
lation by end users. Designs that do not
account for this potential user error can
result in seriously degraded performance
or potential network damage.
FILTERING ENSURES PEACEFUL COEXISTENCE
Given the spectral compatibility be-
tween ADSL and POTS signals, you
might wonder why POTS and ADSL
services can’t peacefully coexist without
filters (Figure 2). The answer lies in an
analysis of telephone design. Although
the Federal Communications Commis-
sion (FCC) Part 68 regulations clearly
state that a telephone shall not transmit
signals beyond 4 kHz, it does not men-
tion impedance effects beyond 4 kHz. In-
deed, most telephones demonstrate a
substantial load on the tip/ring interface
at frequencies reaching as high as sever-
al hundred kilohertz. The impedance in
the POTS band to the phone line changes
from a virtual open circuit when on-
hook to an impedance of a few hundred
ohms when off-hook. For the ADSL sig-
nal band, the off-hook impedance of
some telephony devices can present
600V starting from 25 kHz to as low as
10V when reaching the ADSL upper fre-
quency band of 1 MHz (Reference 1).
Many telephones dissipate a small per-
centage of the ADSL modem energy
without noticeably impacting phone per-
formance. Other telephones dissipate the
out-of-band energy so that distortion
appears in the earpiece as background
noise. Without filtering, such telephones
seem to always have a poor connection,
whether you are calling someone down
the street or in another part of the world.
Statistical estimates indicate that 30% of
phones experience objectionable noise
without filtering.
The telephone-impedance change
within the ADSL band also impacts the
ADSL modem connection. As with pre-
vious modem standards, such as V.34, an
ADSL modem creates a model of the tele-
phone circuit to maximize the rate of
modem transmission and reception. For
56 edn | December 9, 1999
PLAIN-OLD-
TELEPHONE SYSTEM
POWER
15 4k
FREQUENCY (Hz)
Although simple spectral compatibility appears to exist between the POTS and ADSL broadband
service, each spectral band exhibits impedance effects, which interfere with broadband data con-
nections. The out-of-band energy distortion can cause telephone-earpiece background noise.
full-rate ADSL, the modem trains to the
telephone-circuit quality before estab-
lishing a data connection. When the mo-
dem establishes a data connection, it as-
sumes that the line conditions are static
and provides, in theory, an always-on
connection that runs uninterrupted for
days or months until a power outage oc-
curs.
With splitterless G.Lite, each tele-
phone—whether or not it experiences
substantial noise pickup—is likely to
change the circuit impedance enough
when transitioning between on- and off-
hook to force the modem to retrain. As
with previous modem standards, re-
training typically takes more than 10 sec
to complete. During this time, the data
connection is lost. To prevent an objec-
tionable disconnection of Internet access,
the developers of G.Lite conceived a fast
retraining process. With fast retraining,
the modem returns to data mode within
2 sec by relying on previous experiences
of impedance change. In other words, the
modem remembers how each telephone
impacted the line and adjusts itself ac-
cordingly. Unfortunately, for applications
such as voice-over DSL, which is now be-
coming popular, even a 2-sec interrup-
tion of service is unacceptable.
THIRD-ORDER FILTERS
An effective filter kills two birds with
one stone. By blocking the high-fre-
quency ADSL signal from entering the
phone, the filter eliminates the potential
for noise pickup. The filter-simultane-
ously prevents the telephone-impedance
ASYMMETRICAL-
DIGITAL-SUBSCRIBER
LINE
25k 1.1M
change within the ADSL band from ap-
pearing on the phone circuit. This action
in turn prevents the modem retraining
from occurring every time a telephone
goes off-hook. Because noise and modem
problems are potential customer-sup-
port problems, many carriers have de-
cided to employ filters on all telephone
devices when deploying G.Lite.
If you wish to deploy microfilters for
both G.Lite and G.DMT that prevent
both retraining and noise pickup, the fil-
ter should:
● Have adequate high-frequency re-
jection so that ADSL modem ener-
gy does not appear as noise distor-
tion for any telephone, answering
machine, or caller-ID device, and
the energy does not adversely affect
voiceband-modem operation.
● Block the impedance change that
the telephone causes to eliminate re-
training for both G.Lite and G.DMT
modems.
● Have sufficient stopband imped-
ance such that several telephony de-
vices can share a phone circuit with-
out adversely affecting ADSL mo-
dem performance.
● Exhibit minimal voiceband attenu-
ation so that users do not perceive
a drop in transmitting or receiving
telephone signal level.
● Have a topology that allows “re-
versible” installation. With the like-
lihood of customers not observing
polarity, the filter should provide
equivalent performance whether
you install the male RJ-11 on the
www.ednmag.com
designfeature Microfilter design

wall plate or on the back of the tele-

phone.
Figure 3 TO PHONE
● Have a minimal component OR TO LINE
TO PHONE
OR TO LINE
count to achieve the lowest possible
cost and the stated performance
goals.
A third-order LC filter based on a A simple third-order, reversible lowpass filter with a Chebychev-II response satisfies all the neces-
Chebychev-II response satisfies these de- sary design criteria and is far superior to Butterworth-filter approaches.
sign criteria. Although substantial work is
necessary to simultaneously achieve all of response with a two-pole Butterworth de- quency is much steeper than with Butter-
the design objectives, the resulting design sign, which some manufacturers have used worth designs. The third-order filter pres-
is both simple and reversible (Figure 3).At in field trials. In both cases, the perform- ents more than 35 dB of attenuation be-
first glance, the filter topology appears to ance assumes a purely resistive 600V ter- ginning at 25 kHz. This amount of signal
be a “T-section” Butterworth filter. How- mination. Real-world applications at im- rejection prevents an ADSL signal with
ever, due to intentionally introduced in- pedances other than 600V result in a high peak-signal power from corrupting
terwinding capacitance of the inductors stopband performance degradation of 10 voiceband data-communication signals
and a careful selection of component val- dB or more. In the passband, the Cheby- and causing performance degradation.
ues, both the simulated and measured fre- chev-II design achieves a loss of less than Moreover, the third-order filter’s design
quency response of this lowpass filter 1 dB over a range of impedances. This low topology is truly symmetrical and, there-
closely resembles that of a Chebychev-II loss is essential because the splitter at the fore, reversible. With only three compo-
variety. The third-order lowpass-filter de- central office already contributes to pass- nents, the third-order filter topology in
sign not only offers sufficient high-fre- band attenuation, and subjective telepho- Figure 3 meets the full set of design re-
quency signal rejection—35 dB of atten- ny-signal attenuation of 2 dB begins to oc- quirements, including the need for re-
uation—for both full-rate and G.Lite, but cur. versible installation, so it doesn’t cost much
also provides reversibility to eliminate pos- Figure 4 shows the obvious advantages more than the inferior Butterworth filter.
sible installation error. of this filter, namely its maximally flat
Figure 4 shows the measured amplitude magnitude response in the passband. More BUTTERWORTH FILTERS FALL SHORT
response for the Chebychev-II filter. This importantly, the figure shows that the fil- Although some manufacturers use
figure compares the Chebychev-II filter’s ter’s attenuation beyond the cutoff fre- second-order Butterworth filters, these

THE GOAL OF SPLITTERLESS ADSL

To deliver high-speed digital con-
nectivity to residential homes and
small businesses, asymmetrical-
digital-subscriber-line (ADSL)tech-
nology uses frequency-division
multiplexing (FDM) on the same
two-wire telephone line as the
plain-old telephone service
(POTS). Multiplexing several sig-
nals offers the phone network sub-
stantial new capability without re-
quiring any new copper phone
lines.
Today’s ADSL service deploy-
ments require a splitter at the cus-
tomer’s telephone-service-demar-
cation location, or the network-
interface demarcation (NID). This
splitter separates the ADSL high-
frequency signal from the tele-
phone circuit before it connects to
the house wiring. The splitter sep-
arates telephony signals from the
high-speed ADSL signal and pre-
vents any interference between the
two services.
To ease broad-scale deploy-
ment by eliminating the need for
carrier “truck rolls,” splitterless
ADSL was conceived through the
use of G.Lite, which reduces the
bandwidth and power of the
G.DMT standard (rreferences A and
B). Theoretically, G.Lite service
could coexist with POTS without
customer-premise splitters and,
thus, could do away with the truck
roll associated with full-rate ADSL.
In practice, most homes require
one or more “microfilters” to elim-
inate potential background noise in
the telephones. Unfiltered tele-
phones force the modem to retrain
each time you take a telephone off-
hook or return it to its on-hook
state. With potential customer-sup-
port problems in mind, many car-
riers are employing filters on all te-
lephony devices when they offer
G.Lite. Having made this decision,
many carriers now view full-rate
splitterless service as the preferred
service, because full-rate G.DMT
modems attain better loop reach
and better modem performance at
a given loop length, and they have
the installation advantages of split-
terless ADSL. Consequently, a
high-performance telephony filter
is necessary; the ideal design
would accommodate both full-rate
and G.Lite modem technology.
Beyond bringing broadband
communications into the home,
microfilters may also play a signif-
icant role in the home-LAN envi-
ronment. With ADSL as the broad-
band data pipe into the home, the
Home Phoneline Networking Al-
liance standard also leverages the
same two wires as POTS and DSL
to provide home networking at bit
rates reaching 10 Mbps. In this
case, the analog design issues are
even more complex than in a tra-
ditional POTS-only analog envi-
ronment. The spectral- and im-
pedance-compatibility issues for all
of these technologies are not triv-
ial and require careful design at-
tention.
REFERENCES
A. “Splitterless G.Lite Interoper-
ability with ANSI T1.413 and/or
G.DMT,” Aware Inc, ITU-Telecom-
munication Standardization Sector,
Study Group 15, Contribution Doc-
umentation # RB-022-E, October
1997.
B. “Splitterless DMT System De-
sign and Measurements,” Aware
Inc, ITU-Telecommunication Stan-
dardization Sector, Study Group
15, Contribution Documentation
# RB-019-E, October 1997.

58 edn | December 9, 1999 www.ednmag.com

designfeature Microfilter design

filters have limitations in split-

terless ADSL applica-
Figure 4
tions. Due to the inher-
ent characteristics of
Butterworth-filter designs, at-
tenuation is 3 dB at the desired
cutoff frequency, and attenua-
tion above the cutoff frequency
is moderately steep at 12 dB/oc-
tave. When an insertion loss of AMPLITUDE (dB)
0.3 dB is necessary throughout
the POTS band (0 to 4 kHz), the
cutoff frequency of the Butter-
worth filter must be approxi-
mately 8 kHz (Figure 4). Given
such a high cutoff frequency,
the total attenuation achieved at
25 kHz, which is the beginning
of the ADSL band, is 19 dB. This
attenuation still allows a fair
amount of ADSL-transmitting-
signal leakage through the filter
FREQUENCY (Hz)
and could potentially cause in-
terference to voiceband devices, Chebychev filter’s magnitude response exhibits a much steeper attenuation beyond the cutoff frequency than
especially data devices, such as the response of a second-order Butterworth filter.
data and fax modems. For a
standard full-rate ADSL system, the into account the PAR of a standard DSL- ADSL band, thereby shunting the ADSL
transmit power level is 234.5 to 238 discrete-multitone (DMT) system to de- transmission path. This problem often
dBm/Hz for an average power of 13 dBm termine the required total out-of-band results in a customer-support call and
referencing to 100V (Reference 2). This signal rejection. Because of the modula- could possibly result in network damage.
power level is equivalent to a maximum tion scheme that a standard G.DMT sys- Needless to say, reversibility is an impor-
power of 242 dBm/Hz driving into tem uses, the PAR is much higher than tant feature.
600V. When voiceband modems or fax for normal sinusoidal signals. With a
machines operate on the same phone crest factor of 5.33 for DMT ADSL sys- ANALYZE IMPEDANCE CHARACTERISTICS
wires, the receiving modem’s signal-pow- tems, the peak power level is 5.33 times Before finalizing any lowpass-filter de-
er level is typically only 261 dBm/Hz. the average transmitting power. In other sign, you need to carefully analyze im-
This number results from the 29 dBm of words, during DSL-signal transmission, pedance characteristics. The lowpass fil-
maximum average transmitting power a data pattern momentarily generates ter must isolate the operation of each
from a voiceband modem over an aver- peak power that is approximately 6 dB POTS device from the ADSL system,
age Public Switched Telephone Network higher than the average power. To obtain thereby protecting ADSL always-on con-
(PSTN) loop attenuation of 16 dB (Ref- full immunity to ADSL peak-transmis- nections from interference generated by
erence 3). With such a standard loop sion energy and to avoid impairing voice- impedance changes. Ideally, the filter
available, the 19-dB attenuation that a band data devices, more than 25 dB of at- should be transparent to POTS devices
second-order Butterworth filter offers tenuation is highly desirable for a filter and act as a high-impedance block to the
appears capable of providing sufficient operating in a full-rate splitterless ADSL ADSL data link.
isolation. However, the 99% corner case environment. This additional require- The first design criterion is to provide
of POTS-loop attenuation is 27 dB. Con- ment means a higher order filter is nec- high impedance beginning at 25 kHz for
sequently, a filter that satisfies the worst- essary to meet the more stringent spec- both on- and off-hook conditions. To
case need for unhindered voiceband mo- tral roll-off. avoid high signal losses across the ADSL-
dem operation would present an Another disadvantage of the second- signal band, a filter-input impedance of
attenuation of at least 30 dB. order Butterworth filter is its inherent more than 400V is desirable. In a typi-
Beyond the consideration for voice- unidirectional topology. Such filters must cal residential-telephone network, con-
band modems, another important con- have clear markings so that the sub- necting multiple POTS devices to the
sideration for the filter is the peak-to-av- scriber does not install them backward. same line results in multiple filters in par-
erage ratio (PAR) of a full-rate G.DMT When you reverse the filter—using the allel. Therefore, input impedance much
system. A second-order Butterworth fil- input as the output and vice versa—a ca- higher than 400V inside the ADSL band
ter can meet the average-power filter-de- pacitor across the tip-and-ring interface is necessary for a properly designed filter.
sign criteria, but you also need to take presents a low impedance within the For example, many consumers have five

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Circle 3 or visit www.ednmag.com/infoaccess.asp
62 edn | December 9, 1999
designfeature Microfilter design
or more telephony devices coexisting on
the same telephone wires as ADSL; having
three telephones, an answering machine,
and a fax machine on one wire is com-
mon. Because each telephony device re-
quires its own filter, the total equivalent in-
put impedance that the combined filters
present still needs to be more than 400V;
therefore, each filter’s input impedance
must be greater than 2 kV. Lower imped-
ance for individual filters presents a much
lower equivalent impedance, causing un-
acceptable signal loading and loss.
The microfilter’s impedance character-
istics must meet the impedance con-
straints associated with POTS devices for
frequencies less than 4 kHz for both on-
and off-hook conditions. Because design-
ers typically simulate the lowpass filter us-
ing 600V impedance terminations for the
off-hook condition, the filter’s frequency
response with proper termination is quite
flat within the 0- to 4-kHz passband.
However, this same filter could behave im-
properly when terminated by an open cir-
cuit. On-hook telephony devices present
very high termination impedances to the
filter, similar to an open circuit. When you
terminate a two-pole lowpass filter on the
telephone side with an open circuit, as in
an on-hook condition, the inductor and
capacitor create a series-resonant circuit.
This circuit can present an extremely low
input impedance dip—approaching zero
impedance—at the resonant frequency for
which the inductor and capacitor have
equal and opposite reactance. This low im-
pedance drop-off typically occurs within
the passband of a lowpass filter.
For example, consider a second- or
third-order, L-C-type Butterworth filter
for which the resonant frequency is usu-
ally around 0.71 times the 3-dB corner fre-
quency. When this low-impedance reso-
nant point resides inside the POTS
passband, serious impedance impair-
ments and a nonflat frequency response in
both on- and off-hook states can result.
Unexpectedly large in-band impedance
loading due to on-hook telephones with
filters can greatly degrade or even jeop-
ardize services such as caller ID. In the off-
hook transmission case, a similar imped-
ance issue could significantly impair POTS
service. This property is not unique to sec-
ond-order filters but applies to almost all
filter designs with more than one pole.
Therefore, detailed filter-input-imped-
ance analysis is quite important, and, in
the lowpass microfilter design case, it is
critical. Impedance tuning to satisfy both
terminated and unterminated cases be-
comes one of the most important design
criteria. In fact, filter designs with more se-
ries-resonant L-C pairs generate more
than one resonant frequency. Multiple res-
onant frequencies can result in multiple
low-impedance points in the spectrum
and can create even more design com-
plexities than second- or third-order fil-
ters. As a rule of thumb, carefully choose
a filter’s 3-dB cutoff frequency so that the
resonant frequency due to on-hook tele-
phones with filters is above the POTS sig-
nal band and well below the ADSL trans-
mission band. If you properly address
these design considerations, then the fil-
ter’s input impedance is high enough to
isolate the ADSL system from the POTS
device during state changes.k
References
1. Regan, Robert J, “Telephone Imped-
ance Measurements,” GTE Laboratories,
Universal ADSL Technical Group Contri-
bution, Document, April 1998.
2. “Asymmetrical Digital Subscriber
Line (ADSL) Metallic Interface,” ANSI
T1.413 Issue 2, Sept 26, 1997.
3. Bingham, John, The Theory and Prac-
tice of Modem Design, John Wiley & Sons,
1998.
4. Cook, John, and Phil Sheppard,
“ADSL and VADSL Splitter Design and
Telephony Performance,”IEEE, May 1995.
5. Kempainen, Stephen,“ADSL: the end
of the wait for home Internet,” EDN, Oct
10, 1996, pg 52.
6. Johnson, David E, Introduction to Fil-
ter Theory, Prentice-Hall Inc.
7. Van der Putten, Frank, “ADSL-Liter:
ADSL Standard T1.413 Implementation
Guide for Easier Installation and Lower
Complexity of Customer Equipment,”Al-
catel, Universal ADSL Technical Group
Contribution, Document TG/98-009, Jan-
uary 1998.
Author’s Bio graphy
Ting Sun is an engineering manager for
2Wire Inc (Milpitas, CA, www.2wire.com),
where he manages the hardware design of
ADSL residential gateway products and
other home-networking Internet appli-
ances. He holds an MSEE from the Uni-
versity of Minnesota (Minneapolis) and a
BSEE from Tsinghua University (Beijing).
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