Sckipio Technologies, singly and in collaboration with customer partners, has announced new capabilities involving the ability of its G.fast chips to support Dynamic Time Assignment (DTA), the G.fast equivalent of PON's Dynamic Bandwidth Allocation (DBA). Sckipio and broadband technology provider Calix Inc. (NYSE: CALX) say they have developed "collective DTA," which enables the use of DTA on both coax and bundled twisted-pair copper. The silicon vendor also says it now offers a single-port G.fast distribution point unit (DPU) reference design that supports up to 1 Gbps of symmetrical broadband over existing coax and copper wiring.
Sckipio announced DTA support this past May (although it called it DBA at the time; see "Sckipio adds dynamic bandwidth allocation to G.fast"). The approach, recently ratified by the ITU-T alongside the use of 212-MHz spectrum in Amendment 3 of the organization's G.fast standards, enables flexibility in the use of available upstream and downstream capacity based on expected usage. DTA is considered important to enable G.fast networks to approach support of 1-Gbps services, and essential if G.fast were to be applicable to coax infrastructure.
However, the initial implementation of DTA only worked in low-crosstalk applications such as coax links or single-line scenarios. Sckipio and Calix say they have developed a way to apply DTA across a wider range of infrastructure, including higher-density, higher-crosstalk environments such as twisted-pair bundles.
Calix has leveraged the advance to create a 16-port vectored G.fast DPU.
Meanwhile, Sckipio has used its chips' DTA capabilities to create a reference design for what it calls "virtual fiber" – basically, more tightly integrating the management and capabilities of GPON-based fiber connections to a DPU with the delivery of high-speed services from that DPU via in-building twisted-pair or coax connections within a multiple dwelling unit (MDU) or directly to a single-family home.
The reference design supports a thin management layer that enables operators to maintain existing GPON management practices, but extends them with a separate G.fast management layer.
Sckipio says it built the reference design in collaboration with Intel and Microsemi. Technology from the latter company enables the reference design to support reverse power feeding. The Sckipio G.fast management layer is designed to be compatible with Intel-based GPON management infrastructures.
"Sckipio is opening up an entirely new use case for G.fast," said Teresa Mastrangelo, principal analyst, Broadbandtrends, via a Sckipio press release. "By combining DTA and unmanaged G.fast, Sckipio makes it effortless to add G.fast to any GPON network."
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