With ADSL, the modem and the DSLAM communicate by a protocol called discrete multitone modulation (DMT), which is a form of frequency division multiplexing. The modem only uses frequencies above 8 kHz, to avoid interfering with normal phone service. The bandwidth of the line between 8 kHz and about 1 MHz is divided into 247 separate channels, each 4 kHz wide. A separate carrier signal carries information in each channel. Thus the system acts like 247 separate modems operating simultaneously. The bits of the incoming digital data are split up and sent in parallel over the channels. Each data stream is sent using an error-correcting code to allow minor bit errors due to noise to be corrected at the receiving end. Most of the channels are unidirectional, carrying download data from the DSLAM to the modem, but some on the low frequency end are bidirectional, to carry the smaller quantity of upload traffic. The modem constantly monitors the transmission quality on each channel, and if it is too impaired it will shift the signal to other channels. The modem is constantly shifting data between channels searching for the best transmission rates. Thus interference or poor quality lines will generally not interrupt transmission, but only cause the data rate of the modem to degrade.