Telecom equipment maker Alcatel-Lucent and A1 the Austrian subsidiary of Telecom Austria Group today announced the completion of what the two companies say is the world’s first trial of G. fast, a technology that enables high-speed video and data transmissions of more than one gigabit per second (Gbps) over copper for short distances.
The test by Alcatel-Lucent already achieved 1.3 Gbps over 70 meters and 800 Mbps over 100 metres making G. fast ideal for so-called last-mile applications for digital subscriber line (DSL) networks, the company said. The technology is meant to boost transmission speeds over copper so that they can keep up with speeds achieved using fibre optic cable.
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“In any fibre-to-home project, a substantial part of the cost-per-subscriber is in the last few meters between the nearest network cabinet and the home,” according to statement by Alcatel-Lucent today. “These costs can be avoided by using G. fast over existing copper telephone line, rather than having to dig up roads or private property to install new fibre.”
The trial also used vectoring technology to enable G. fast to work over multiple copper lines at the same time.
In many real-world applications, such as fibre-to-the-building, the copper lines serving neighbouring homes are packed closely together. This results in crosstalk interference between lines, which significantly reduces the potential data transmission speed.
“G. fast vectoring removes this crosstalk, stabilizes the transmission quality and enables the technology to perform to its full potential,” Alcatel-Lucent said.
The 500 Mbps speed over 100 meters achieved with the vectoring technology was a huge improvement over widely used DSL networks that typically offer speeds of 5 – 30 Mbps or current VDSL 2 vectoring networks that support 100 Mbps, according to Alcatel-Lucent.
The downside.
G. fast is not yet standardized and “won’t be commercially available for several years,” according to the company.