Broadband access and home networking semiconductor and software vendor Lantiq has unveiled what it claims is the first commercially available reverse-powered fiber-to-the-distribution point (FTTdp) technology, which delivers aggregated data rates of up to 250 Mbps over twisted-pair copper line lengths up to 200 m. The company says the system sets a new performance benchmark for next-generation copper access, supporting triple-play broadband services including multiple HDTV channels over IP.
Based on Lantiq’s FALC-ON GPON and the VINAXV3 VDSL2 chipsets, the technology was jointly developed with Aethra Telecommunications Inc., and also benefits from patent-pending reverse power feeding circuitry.
Lantiq and Aethra will demonstrate the FTTdp technology at the Broadband World Forum exhibition, on October 16-18 in Amsterdam at Lantiq’s booth C4. The demo is fully reverse powered, based on a customer premises power injector adaptor developed by Aethra Telecommunications.
The partners developed FTTdp to overcome the capex requirements for fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) deployments. The new approach leverages existing copper wire infrastructure to provide more than double typical copper-based broadband service speeds by moving the optical fiber access point closer to the users. Working from fiber drop points on a neighborhood pole or in a building basement, service providers can provision multiple customer end-points for the enhanced VDSL2 service.
Only the very low-power consumption of Lantiq's broadband access product portfolio makes it possible to reverse power the distribution point from the customer's premise, the company claims. The maximum power budget for the reverse-powered distribution point is limited to less than 10 W. Considering loss of power from AC/DC efficiency, DC/DC efficiency, and transmission loss, the power budget remaining for the GPON and VDSL2 chipset is very limited.
System manufacturers can address a variety of deployment scenarios for FTTdp, ranging from single-user copper extension of fiber to as many as 16 users being served by a single fiber access point. To maintain the increased copper-performance in multi-user user deployments, Lantiq also offers VDSL2 vectoring to compensate for the additional cross-talk between the users.
"Delivering an aggregate data rate of 200 Mbps or more based on enhanced copper technologies allows service providers to capitalize on the potential of their existing copper access networks," said Hans-Peter Trost, senior marketing manager of Lantiq's access networks business unit.
Both the Lantiq FALC-ON GPON and VINAX V3 VDSL2 chipsets are in volume production and available now, the company says. The chips can support both self-powered and reverse-powered FTTdp designs.
For more information on FTTx/access systems and suppliers, visit the Lightwave Buyer’s Guide.
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