Lucent Technologies has launched chips that will enable telephone service providers simultaneously to provide high-speed Internet and voice services to eight times as many consumers as is possible with typical current systems.

The chips, part of the company's WildWire range, go into telco central office equipment called digital line cards. They are designed to deliver so-called ADSL "Lite" services at up to 1.5Mb per second - 25 times quicker than today's fastest analogue modems.

ADSL (Asymmetrical Digital Subscriber Line) Lite uses regular phone lines and does not require costly and time consuming installation of voice/data splitters at consumers' homes.