G.fast, an emerging last mile technology standard that leverages a telco's existing copper pairs to deliver up to 1 Gbps speeds, got the International Telecommunication Union's (ITU's) first-stage approval during the Study Group 15 meeting it recently held in Geneva.
The group issued Recommendation ITU-T G.9700, which specifies methods to minimize the risk interference risk that G.fast equipment has with broadcast services such as FM radio, paving the way for the G.fast standard to be approved early next year.
For service providers that want to deliver higher speeds without the cost of deploying a fiber to the premises (FTTP)-based solution, G.fast can provide higher speeds on copper lines at short distances of up to 250 meters typically between the copper distribution point and the customer premises.
To ensure that that the G.fast solutions can be quickly placed into fiber deployments, the ITU's G.fast standard is being coordinated with the Broadband Forum's Fiber-to-the-Distribution-Point (FTTdp) system architecture project.
Besides providing higher speeds that can be delivered over traditional ADSL2+ and VDSL2, the other key feature G.fast provides is that it enables customers to self-install the service. This means that a service provider can forgo the expense of deploying technicians to a consumer's home, while consumers won't have to arrange a time for an installation visit.
G.fast is gaining interest from a number of incumbent telcos that have an abundance of copper in their networks. Earlier this month, Telekom Austria and Alcatel-Lucent conducted a G.fast trial where they demonstrated the ability to deliver 1.1 Gbps over 70 meters on the newer copper cable, and achieved 800 Mbps over 100 meters and 500 Mbps over 100 meters on the older unshielded cable.
For more:
- see the release
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