Deutsche Telekom gets regulatory clearance for vectored VDSL services

Deutsche Telekom has gotten clearance from the country's regulator BNA and the European Commission (EC) to implement vectoring to increase the rate and reach of its existing VDSL network.

Because vectoring can only be deployed in either Serving Area Interfaces (SAI) or Remote Terminal (RT) cabinets and is not compatible with Local Loop Unbundling (LLU), the telco has to offer the vectored service to competitors like Vodafone via special bitstream services.

It also has to provide a standard contract for vectoring-based bitstream access to BNA, which has to approve the contracts before it can deploy vectoring.  

With these rules in place, a competitor will be able interconnect at the street cabinet using fiber and implement vectoring, on condition that they offer an appropriate bitstream product under open access arrangements.

Getting the regulatory approval to provide vectored VDSL provides some clarity for the German incumbent telco. Last December, it said it would spend €6 billion ($7.9 billion) to build out a fiber to the cabinet (FTTC) network to expand download speeds on its copper lines from 50 to 100 Mbps.

Europe has been leading the majority of new VDSL and vectoring deployments. In addition to Deutsche Telekom, other European telcos including Belgacom, OTE, TDC Denmark and Telekom Austria A1 are all in one stage or another of deploying a mix of VDSL2 with vectoring in their serving areas.

For more:
- TeleGeography has this article

Special report: The 10 hottest wireline technologies in 2013

Related articles:
VDSL2 with bonding or vectoring - Top wireline technologies in 2013
Deutsche Telekom mulls vectored DSL
Deutsche Telekom to bring FTTH to apartment complexes
Deutsche Telekom conducts 512G transmission experiment