Alcatel-Lucent says VDSL2, vectoring isn't enough to deliver 100 Mbps over existing copper

Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE: ALU) may be an advocate of VDSL2 and vectoring, but the Franco American company says that those technologies may be not be enough to overcome interference issues to deliver 100 Mbps and above over existing copper pairs to broadband customers. 

The vendor is now advocating a new standard called G.inp (impulse noise protection) that can deliver speeds of 100 Mbps and beyond by combatting interference generated by every day household appliances.

When used in conjunction with VDSL2 and vectoring over existing copper, G.inp can enable speeds of 100 Mbps over a single copper pair.

When used alone VDSL2 can support speeds up to 100 Mbps at a maximum distance of 500 meters, while vectoring is used to reduce crosstalk on the line created by adjacent copper lines.

G.inp, known as the G.998.4 ITU standard, also combats interference generated by household appliances.

"Despite advances in VDSL2 and vectoring technology, the existing copper infrastructure within subscribers' homes often makes this task impossible without application of G.inp," wrote Jan Verlinden, senior DSL expert for Fixed Access Domain Competence Center, Alcatel-Lucent, in a blog post. "It picks up impulse noises from electrical appliances that create errors in the signal."

Similar to the retransmission method used in TCP/IP, G.inp uses the physical layer retransmission to enhance impulse noise protection. But instead of IP packets, data transfer units (DTU) are sent between transmitter and receiver. If a packet gets corrupted during transmission, the transmitting peer is informed and the DTU is resent.

Alcatel-Lucent claims that the business case for the technology has improved "significantly" in recent years and it has already tested the technology with more than 50 service providers. 

For more:
- see this blog post

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