Huawei announced last week on the eve of the Broadband World Forum that it will supply G.fast fiber to the distribution point (FTTdp) G.fast technology for a field trial BT plans to conduct near its BT Adastral Park R&D center in Ipswich.
G.fast is expected to succeed VDSL2 vectoring as carriers look to provide downstream speeds approaching 1 Gbps over copper-based broadband access networks (see “Will FTTN advances delay FTTH?”). The ITU-T is currently developing G.fast specifications, which are expected to enable copper to support 500 Mbps downstream over a distance of 100 m. However, several vendors, including Huawei, say they can support 1 Gbps with a few tweaks to the anticipated specifications, including the application of vectoring. G.fast is an integral part of Huawei’s “fiber to the door” architecture. The company also asserts that it has played a leading role in standards development so far, including the contribution of proposals covering point-to-point architecture, time-division duplex mode and basic frame structure, transmission frequency spectrum, forward error correction (FEC) channel coding, line activation negotiation mechanism, multi-line crosstalk offset, online reconfiguration, and a power-saving working mode.
BT has installed Huawei’s multi-port G.fast equipment in underground distribution points as part of the trial. "The G.fast trial has the potential to demonstrate how ultrafast bandwidth access may be more efficiently delivered to consumers and businesses,” said Dr. Tim Whitley, managing director, research and innovation at BT. “We will be observing the results of the trial with interest to see whether G.fast technology could play a role in ensuring BT has the best network in the short, medium, and long term.”
Added Gao Ji, Huawei’s chief strategy and marketing officer, Western Europe, "Copper wires remain an important resource to telecom carriers and are assets that have yet to be fully exploited. By utilizing new copper wire technologies, such as vectoring and G.fast, carriers can make more efficient use of their resources and quickly implement bandwidth strategies, helping to achieve commercial success. Huawei will continue to invest in copper-wire technology and plans to lead further innovations in this area."
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