Openreach, the infrastructure arm of BT, has selected Huawei and Nokia to provide a range of G.fast equipment to support high-speed broadband services over copper cabling. Huawei and Nokia have both been working with Openreach on G.fast technology trials in Huntingdon, Gosforth, and Swansea (see "BT connects first G.fast trial customers"). They will now provide Openreach with switches, modems and cabinet "side pods" to deliver download speeds up to 330 Mbps, more than 20X the current UK average, to 10 million homes and businesses by the end of 2020.
Openreach expects to roll out G.fast in parts of Gillingham and Cherry Hinton in late 2016 and deliver broadband data rates of at least 100 Mbps to 12 million premises within the same timeframe (see "Openreach plans new FTTP, G.fast trials").
"Openreach is pioneering G.fast technology because we want to get affordable ultrafast speeds to as many people as possible in the fastest possible time," says Clive Selley, CEO at Openreach. "We'll be going flat out to reach 12 million homes by 2020, and we are really leading the way by bringing cutting-edge kit to the UK at a huge scale."
The decision leaves ADTRAN, the third participant in the G.fast trials, at the altar.
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