The hymmehc Digital Subscriber L i e (ADSL) service attempts to provide 1.6 Mbps data transmission over a single twistedpair copper loop for distances up to 18 kft. In this paper we investigate the various system components necessary to realize s u d a system on a single integrated circuit (IC). Topics of discussion include: modulation format, adaptive equalization and its convergence, and system sensitivity to sampling phase enor. A comparison of conventional QAM and PAM modulation schemes is presented, followed by simulation results for a QAM based alldigital system. It is concluded that a QAM based system can meet the system objectives. The use of fractionally-spaced equalization and error prediction as means of improving SNR, and reducing the hardware complexity (fewer equalizer taps) are investigated for such a system. It is shown that with 6 T/Z-spaced feed-forward equalizer (FFE) taps, 8 decision-feedback equalizer (DIT) taps, and 2 error predictor taps. the proposed digital QAM system can achieve performance close to that of an ideal infinite length equalizer.