Openreach Spearheads Viability of G.Fast

Openreach Spearheads Viability of G.Fast

Openreach, the infrastructure division of the British Telco Company BT, is set to begin G.fast trials this August. During the next few weeks, customers in Huntingdom, Swansea and Gosforth will have the opportunity to access near gigabit speeds at no cost during the duration of the trial.

While it remains unclear which ISPS are going to be participating in the trial rollout, Hardware Editor Mark Walton from ARS Technica UK speculates that BT will form part of the select group of ISPs that will begin experimenting with G.Fast deployments.

g.fast speedsWhile G.Fast yields gigabit speeds in laboratory settings, customers who participate in the trial are expected to receive “330Mbps down and 30Mbps up”, speeds that outperform “Virgin’s top-tier 152 Mbps service” according to Ars Technica UK.

Openreach has named the effort NGA2 (Next Generation Access) and aims to deliver G.fast technology to customers who are located to nearby cabinets. Because G.fast technology depends on legacy copper lines to transmit data, signals attenuate after long distances, much like VDSL2 technology.

G.fast requires the Digital Subscriber Line Access Multipler (DSLAM) to be located close to customer premises, preferably less than 250 meters to achieve optimal performance.  Premises located closest to the cabinet will experience the fastest speed performance. Current FTTC deployments house DSLAMs up to a mile away from customer premises.

The trial runs will allow ISPs to gauge the ROI of the new technology and anticipate how the new technology will fit with their current service offerings.

https://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/7050-g-fast-nga2-trials-start-in-august.html Think Broadband asserts that while the market is ready for G.fast, the technology still needs time to mature and is still considered bleeding edge technology due to its instability.

Orange Polska, a Polish Telecom company has also commenced trials for G.Fast. G.Fast experimentation. Fierceneterprisecommunications asserts that Germany, Italy and Great Britain are spearheading G.fast technology. While overseas telecom companies are starting to experiment with G.fast technology, it seems that North American ISPs are waiting to follow suit.

 

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