Frontier Communications promised to expand high-speed fiber internet service into unserved and underserved urban and rural areas of Connecticut, eliminate hidden surcharges and improve its marketing and customer-service functions, all part of a settlement with the state attorney general valued at $60 million.

The settlement, unveiled August 31, was part of an overall investigation by the attorney general’s office and the Connecticut Department of Consumer Services as to whether Frontier deceived or misled consumers in the state in the marketing and sale of its internet services. The two agencies jointly reviewed more than 1,400 consumer complaints against the company, ranging from fees for equipment already returned, poor customer service and charges that continued after service had been canceled. 

“Frontier failed Connecticut consumers,” Connecticut Attorney General William Tong said in a press release. “Their DSL internet quality was slow and unreliable, and their customer service was unacceptable. They tacked on hidden fees, charged families for returned equipment, and kept charging customers even after services had been cancelled. That ends now.”

Also: Nearly 2,000 Striking Frontier Workers Back on the Job in California 

In a statement, Frontier said the complaints dated back to old legacy services and the company admitted no wrongdoing. 

“Frontier is investing hundreds of millions of dollars to build a fiber infrastructure that will provide high speed, reliable connectivity across the State of Connecticut,” Frontier said in a statement. “The settlement with the State of Connecticut is primarily related to legacy DSL services and stipulates that Frontier has admitted no wrongdoing. We settled the investigation in good faith to put it behind us so we could focus on our business – that’s in the best interest of all our customers.”

As part of the settlement, Frontier will spend $42.5 million over the next 3.5 years to upgrade outdated digital subscriber line (DSL) service in the state, with at least half of those improvements made in economically distressed urban and rural communities, or about 40,000 homes. In addition, Frontier has agreed to eliminate what the state called a $6.99 hidden monthly surcharge for internet service (amounting to $16 million last year alone), to pay $1 million to the state and to dole out $200,000 for credits and refunds to consumers who filed complaints beginning in 2019.

“We intend to hold Frontier accountable to every word of this agreement,” Tong continued. “If you continue to have any problems with Frontier, we want to hear from you.”

This is the second settlement Frontier has made in the past three months. In May it agreed to pay $8.5 million in civil penalties and costs and return $250,000 to consumers in California as part of a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission and two California law enforcement agencies over DSL service.  

Also: FCC to Investigate Frontier Outages in Arizona  

Also as part of the Connecticut settlement, Frontier must meet several accountability targets over the next six years, including new price and billing disclosures, advertisement disclosures that address its DSL representations, requirements that Frontier deliver promised internet speeds or provide options for consumers who do not receive promised speeds, and assurances that the company will implement transparent and fair cancellation and equipment return processes. Failure to meet those requirements could end in another $6 million in penalties levied against the company by the state. 

The agreement also provides protections for consumers offered the upgrade, including a 45-day period to decide whether to transition to fiber internet, protections against early termination or disconnection fees if they elect to cancel Frontier service, access to new customer promotional rates, and information about internet subsidies through the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP). ■

Growth in residential broadband subscriptions will mainly be a market share game between cable, telco and satellite providers for the foreseeable future, as total high-speed internet penetration passes 90% in the U.S., according to Kagan, the media research unit of S&P Global Market Intelligence. 

Kagan estimates that total U.S. broadband subscriptions will reach 122 million at the end of 2022, as cable operators continue to expand their existing footprints through edge-out programs, telcos upgrade their plant with fiber builds, wireless carriers deploy 5G service, and the federal government offers incentives to bring broadband to rural markets through programs like the $42.5 billion Broadband Equity Access and Deployment (BEAD) project.

Cable broadband growth has been on a slower pace compared to the record growth during the pandemic, a combination of high penetration rates, stiffer competition and a slowdown in new housing starts.

Both Comcast and Charter reported broadband subscriber growth in Q1 that was half that of the prior year, and while most analysts expect operators and telcos to grow their high-speed data customer bases, none expect the pace to quicken anytime soon.

Kagan warns that growth will come at the expense of other players. In the research report, Kagan analysts Ian Olgeirson and John Fletcher write that “there simply are not enough subscribers to accommodate the growth ambitions of each segment.” 

As a result, Kagan expects cable, the hands-down dominant player in the broadband segment for the past decade, to begin to show signs of slippage, with market share dipping slightly to 61.9% through 2026. Telcos will see the biggest market share jump -- from 8% to 12.6% by 2026 -- mainly due to their aggressive fiber buildout, although that is somewhat muted by their legacy copper DSL offerings.

Although the next generation of satellite broadband offers some hope, unfavorable cost and speed comparisons should limit growth expectations, according to Kagan, who estimates their share of the market will remain steady at 1% through 2026. ■ 

AT&T has notified its existing DSL customers that they can’t transfer their service to a new address, and effective Oct. 1, the telecom is no longer even selling new DSL-based internet service.

AT&T said at the end of the second quarter that it has only 463,000 DSL customers. With a top-end downstream speed of only around 45 Mbps, the copper-based technology is now firmly classified as obsolete. 

"We are focused on enhancing our network with more advanced, higher speed technologies like fiber and wireless, which consumers are demanding," AT&T said in a statement. "We're beginning to phase out outdated services like DSL and new orders for the service will no longer be supported after October 1. Current DSL customers will be able to continue their existing service or where possible upgrade to our 100% fiber network.”

The news about DSL’s imminent demise comes as AT&T announces new promotional pricing for fixed fiber-to-the-home internet. Effective Oct. 4, the company’s 100 Mbps FTTH service is priced at $35 a month for a year (plus taxes and a $10 monthly equipment ding). Internet 300 is promo priced at $45 a month, while the 1-gig plan is priced at $60. 

AT&T finished Q2 with 4.3 million FTTH customers, adding 220,000 subscribers from April - June. 

The company also said in May that it had 880,000 LTE fixed wireless customers. 

AT&T added 368,000 DirecTV Now customers in Q4 2017, extending the sub total for its OTT TV service to 1.15 million.

AT&T announced in early December that DirecTV Now had surpassed the 1 million subscriber mark, a milestone reached roughly a year after the OTT TV service was launched.

RELATED: DirecTV Now Surpasses 1M Subs

Gains of those lower-margin DirecTV Now subscribers helped to offset a loss of a combined 207,000 U-verse TV and DirecTV satellite TV subscribers. In Q4, U-verse TV lost 60,000 subs, lowering its total to 3.63 million, while DirecTV satellite shed 147,000 subs, for a total of 20.45 million at the end of 2017.

For Q4, AT&T added a total of 161,000 video subs in the U.S. when DirecTV Now, U-verse and DirecTV satellite results were factored in.

On an international basis, AT&T added 300,000 net video subs – 161,000 in the U.S. and 139,000 in Latin America.

AT&T ended 2017 with 14.35 million total broadband connections, including 13.46 million “IP” customers and 888,000 DSL subs. For the quarter, AT&T said it pulled in 95,000 IP broadband net adds, and 19,000 total broadband net adds when DSL losses (76,000) were factored in.

AT&T said it ended the quarter with more than 7 million customer locations passed with its FTTP platform.

The company also ended 2017 with 4.66 million total wired voice connections, down from 8.37 million in the year-ago period.

AT&T posted Q4 consolidated revenues of $41.7 billion, flat from $41.8 billion in the year-ago quarter, and primarily due to declines in legacy wireline services, wireless service revenues and domestic video.

In AT&T’s Entertainment group, video entertainment revenues for Q4 was $9.35 billion, down from $9.56 billion in the year-ago quarter.  High-speed internet revenues came in at $1.89 billion, down from $1.91 billion in the year-ago period. Legacy voice and data services in that unit was $590 million, down from $625 million.

Frontier Communications is joining the small but building G.fast wave by deploying the technology to some apartments and multi-dwelling units across Connecticut.

G.fast is a new standard that can help ISPs extend the life of DSL networks and position them to deliver 1-Gig speeds without FTTP upgrades while also giving them access to technology that can compete more directly with the performance of cable’s widespread DOCSIS networks.

RELATED: ITU Stamps G.fast

Frontier and Nokia said they’ll deliver “fiber-like speeds” to buildings targeted by the G.fast platform.

"Nokia's field-proven G.fast solution will help Frontier quickly bring ultra-broadband access to customers by using the existing copper twisted-pair wiring that is often found in apartment buildings,” Steve Gable, Frontier’s EVP and CTO said in a statement.” Without it, we'd have to drill holes and pull fiber into each apartment unit we serve, a time-consuming and challenging process that can be frustrating for customers. Nokia's solution allows us to deliver new enhanced services without ever having to enter the place of residence."

RELATED: Windstream Brings G.fast to MDUs

Nokia said it has completed G.fast trials with more than 40 customers and is involved in commercial deployments with 10 partners, including Openreach, Chunghwa Telecom, A1 Telekom Austria and Energia Communications.

Of recent note, Windstream teamed up with Calix to deploy G.fast to MDUs in Lincoln, Neb. Last year, U.K. telecom BT said it wasdelivering up to 330 Mbps in a G.fast trial.

DSL data rates can theoretically hit the terabit-per-second range via the use of high-frequency sub-millimeter wave technology at 100 meter lengths via “ordinary twisted pair phone wire,” broadband vendor Assia claims in study that was presented this week in tandem with the G.fast Summit in Paris.

Using similar techniques in millimeter wave bands that will play a big role in 5G deployments, speeds of 100 Gbps can also be achieved over 300 meters and speeds of 10 Gbps can be hit at distances over 500 meters via copper lines, Dr. John Cioffi, chairman and CEO of Assia and Emeritus Professor at Stanford, explained during his keynote at the event (his presentation is posted here).

RELATED: Windstream Brings G.fast to MDUs

“Fiber-like speeds of 10 – 1000’s of gigabits/second (Gbps) are possible by using the previously unexploited waveguide modes of current copper infrastructure,” Cioffi said, in a statement. “Waveguide-mode use is similar to use of millimeter-wave transmissions in advanced wireless and 5G. Waveguides can enable use of frequencies above 100 GHz for extraordinary speeds.”

Cioffi presented his proposal at an event dedicated to G.fast, a new standard designed to bring gigabit-class speeds to DSL networks.

While today’s fastest G.fast systems use about 200 MHz of capacity, wireless uses 25 times as much spectrum, he noted.

RELATED: G.fast Speeds Toward Certification

Cioffi conceded that homes won’t need terabit-level speeds anytime soon, but held that such speeds would be valuable to data centers that are run by telcos as well as companies such as Google and Microsoft.  He also said 5G small cells will also require massive backhaul.

“Fiber is and always will be expensive to deploy. There are a billion phone lines around the world which will now be able to deliver fiber-like speeds over existing copper infrastructure.  Using the existing wires in place can dramatically reduce the cost of 5G networks,” he said.

Windstream has emerged as an early adopter of G.fast, as it will use the emerging advanced DSL platform to bring faster speeds to multiple dwelling units in Lincoln, Neb., using gear from Calix.

Windstream, they said, will target multiple MDUs in the market with Calix’s AXOS G.fast nodes and GigaFamily products in Lincoln. Windstream plans to extend the deployment of G.fast to deliver speeds of up to 1 Gbps over copper there and other markets.

"In a growing community like Lincoln with a large number of college students and young professionals, MDUs are both an opportunity and a challenge for service providers looking to enable a robust subscriber experience," Art Nichols, Windstream’s vice president of network architecture and technology, said in a statement.

Though many telcos are deploying fiber-to-the-premises, G.fast represents an emerging standard that can help them extend the life of DSL networks and position them to deliver 1-Gig speeds in order to compete with cable’s widespread DOCSIS platforms.

Last year, U.K. telecom BT said it was delivering up to 330 Mbps in a G.fast trial.

The ITU awardedfinal approval to the G.fast standard in December 2014.

U.S. cable has been routing the telco competition on the broadband front, but a top industry analyst says he’s concerned about whether MSOs can sustain their rate of growth as the DSL opportunity dissipates and operators face more competition from fiber-fed ISPs.

“Cable’s victory in broadband is turning into a rout,” Craig Moffett of MoffettNathanson explained in a research note issued Wednesday. “But beneath the surface there are reasons for watchfulness, if not for outfight concern, for cable.”

He said U.S. broadband is “rapidly approaching saturation” while the pool of DSL subs from which cable has drawn from is likewise “rapidly dwindling.” In Q3, cable captured 118% of market growth in broadband, as the rate of growth accelerated to 6.4% -- “the fastest pace in years.” The telcos, meanwhile, lost ground.

As for threats, Moffett points the finger at AT&T, which  is expanding the reach of its fiber-based  GigaPower platform. Moffett, who also accounts for FTTP and advanced DSL competition coming from Google Fiber, CenturyLink and  Windstream, also said AT&T’s strategy to migrate more pay TV subs to the DirecTV platform will enable the telco to repurpose capacity so it can offer speeds of at least 25 Mbps more broadly and, thus, compete with cable more directly on a speed basis.

“We are approaching the ceiling,” Moffett wrote, noting that broadband service today has a penetration rate of 79% in the U.S. However broadband is available to 96% of U.S. homes, so the homes that have the option to buy Internet service from a residential wireline ISP is actually 81%.

Another barrier to adoption growth, he said, is that 61% of non-broadband subs don’t own a computer, and 48% earn less than $25,000 per year, which could keep some consumers priced out of the market.

Given that full scenario, Moffett’s updated model now calls for residential wired broadband penetration to rise to 86% of occupied U.S. homes, or 89.6% of homes that can get wired broadband, within five years. That, he said, represents a further deceleration to 1 point of penetration per year versus today’s 2.3 points per year.

“To maintain momentum, cable operators will have to take share from FTTN…buildouts that offer meaningfully higher speeds than legacy DSL," he added.  “Can they?”

With everything factored in, Moffett now projects that cable’s long-term share versus DSL will rise to 90%, its share versus IP-DSLAM will increase to 70%, while its share versus fiber-to-the-node and  FTTH will stay at 55% and 40%, respectively.

The University of New Hampshire InterOperabilty Laboratory (UNH-IOL) said it’s making progress with a certification program tied to G.fast, an emerging standard that will bring gigabit speeds to DSL networks and help telcos better compete against cable’s DOCSIS platform. 

At this week’s  Broadband World Forum in London,  UNH-IOL said it will demo G.fast interoperability to deliver 4K. Additionally, it announced a seventh G.fast “plugfest” set for November. 

UNH-IOL said it’s on target to launch the certification program in the first half of 2016, with the first certified devices expected to emerge sometime next year. So far, more than a dozen companies have engaged with the organization’s certification beta program. 

On the product front, Sckipio Technologies announced that its latest G.fast technology can deliver up to 2 Gbps by bonding two copper pairs to a single G.fast-enabled CPE. The company , which teamed up ith Calix, also claimed that its bonding technique can hit more than 1 Gbps in aggregate throughput across a distance of 300 meters. 

“Bonding is an important requirement, especially with North American operators,” said David Baum, co-founder and CEO of Sckipio Technologies, in a statement. “Service providers need the ability to deliver fiber-like speeds to address regulatory and competitive challenges. Even better, Sckipio allows the service provider to provision such performance only where necessary – keeping overall CapEx and OpEx costs low when gigabit speeds are not required.”

Broadcom, meanwhile,  announced VDSL2 35b and G.fast bonding support for two new protocols under development in the International Telecommunication Union (ITU).

Broadcom said it’s supporting an end-to-end solution for G.fast bonding utilizing the existing BCM65244 infrastructure DSP with the newly-released BCM65249 bonded CPE PHY device.

U.K. telecom giant BT said it is delivering up to 330 Mbps in a trial of G.fast, an emerging standard that aims to bring gigabit capabilities to DSL networks.

BT said the trial in Huntingdon involves about 2,000 homes and businesses, and is being delivered by Openreach, a last mile access network (copper and fiber) that is “open to all communications providers on equal terms.”

BT said the current trial, being run with Adtran, Alcatel-Lucent and Huawei, will run for six to nine months.

If trials like the one underway in Huntingdon are successful and if U.K. regulation continues to encourage investment, Openreach hopes to start deploying G.fast in 2016/2017 alongside its fiber-to-the-cabinet and fiber-to-the-premises services, BT said. 

Openreach is also working on a trial in Gosforth, Newcastle upon Tyne, that will involve another 2,000 homes and businesses, and “will consider widespread deployment from 2016.”

BT also believes that  G.fast will enable it to make speeds of a few hundred megabits per second available to millions of homes by 2020, and deliver up to 500Mbps to most of the UK within a decade as the technology is further developed.

The ITU awarded final approval to the G.fast standard in December 2014, blessing a technology that’s designed to ramp up DSL speeds and offset having to deploy FTTP technologies. The initial version of G.fast targets aggregate data capacity (upstream plus downstream) of 1 Gbps. Telcos with extensive DSL networks are looking at G.fast as cable MSOs continue to deploy DOCSIS 3.0, which enables max downstream of about 1-Gig. Cable operators such as Comcast and Liberty Global have aggressive plans to deploy DOCSIS 3.1, a spec that’s for multi-gigabit speeds – up to 10 Gbps down and at least 1 Gbps upstream.

In results that will likely add fuel to the cord-cutting debate, AT&T said it lose 22,000 U-verse TV subscribers, versus 190,000 net adds in the year-ago quarter.

However, AT&T, which ended Q2 with 5.97 million U-verse video subs and is closing in on its acquisition of DirecTV, did not chalk up that drop-off to cord-cutting but to typical “seasonality” seen in the period alongside the decision to target promotions to more profitable, higher-value subscribers.

On the U-verse video side, the first point to make is that the second quarter is always seasonally a challenge,” AT&T CFO John Stephens said on Thursday afternoon’s earnings call. “You’ve got a lot of relocations; you’ve got a lot of students returning from college. And with our limited footprint with regard to video capabilities, it’s always a challenge for us.”

The issue, he added, is to decide how much the company wants to pump into promotional activities that aim to stimulate growth. “We chose to be very disciplined and very limited in those promotional activities,” Stephens said.

While U-verse video dropped off, U-verse high-speed Internet remained strong, as AT&T added 241,000 subs in that category, extending its total to 12.9 million subs. AT&T said more than 90% of “IP-eligible subscribers” have its U-verse high-speed Internet product.

With DSL factored in, AT&T lost a total of 136,000 broadband subs, widened from a loss of 55,000 last year.

Stephens said U-verse services now account for more than 70% of consumer revenues, and that adjusted consumer U-verse revenues rose 19.2% year-over-year. More than 97% of AT&T’s video customers now take a bundle, and the ARPU for U-verse triple-play customer remains greater than $170.

Stephens said AT&T remains bullish on GigaPower, the telcos’s fiber-based platform that has been launched in 15 markets so far, most recently in Durham and Greensboro, N.C.

Stephens didn’t provide GigaPower sub numbers during the early stages of the deployment, but said AT&T is encouraged by the results so far.

“We are pleased with it,” he said. “The take rates, the satisfaction rates continue to outperform our expectations with our customers.”

Regarding the pending merger with DirecTV, Stephens reiterated that the company expects the deal to achieve $2.5 billion in cost synergies.

AT&T turned in an overall strong Q2, with revenues rising 1.4% to $33 billion, along net income of $3 billion and 69 cents per share that beat analyst expectations by six cents.

Celtic-Plus, a European research initiative, said it has kicked off a €4.4 million (US$4.7 million) project to explore a multi-gigabit version of G.fast, a standard that aims to bring fiber-like speeds over copper-based DSL networks using relatively short loop lengths.

Celtic-Plus’s Gigabits Over the Legacy Drop (GOLD) project “will initiate the planned second version of the G.fast standard and boost is usability in dense city areas,” the group announced Monday. The GOLD consortium consists of 12 companies from eight countries, including BT of the U.K., Orange of France, and several equipment vendors, chipmakers and researchers, including ADTRAN, Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson AB, Sagemcom), and Telnet Redes Inteligentes, Marvell Semiconductors, Sckipio Technologies, TNO, and Lund University, which is coordinating the three-year project. 

They said the project is getting underway after the recent completion of another initiative, HFCC/G.fast, which demonstrated throughputs of nearly 1Gbps per copper pair at 100 meters, and up to 170 Mbps per copper pair at 480 meters, on a 16 pair standard cable.

GOLD, they said, aims to push G.fast to multiple-gigabit speeds through the pursuit of a second version of the G.fast standard that works at higher frequencies and support more than 200 MHz of bandwidth. It’s anticipated that this new version will likely take two to three years to become an ITU standard.

The ITU awarded final approval to the G.fast standard in December 2014, stamping a technology that’s designed to ramp up DSL speeds and offset having to deploy FTTP technologies. The initial version of G.fast targets aggregate data capacity (upstream plus downstream) of 1 Gbps. Telcos with extensive DSL networks are looking at G.fast as cable MSOs continue to deploy DOCSIS 3.0, which enables about 1-Gig in the downstream, and moves ahead on DOCSIS 3.1, a new spec that is aiming for multi-gigabit speeds – up to 10 Gbps down and at least 1 Gbps upstream.

“G.fast is quickly turning into a key technology for European operators,” said Trevor Linney, head of Access Network Research at BT, in a statement. “During our lab evaluations, it has outperformed our expectations in terms of bitrate and reach for fixed line subscribers. Now, we have formed the GOLD project to drive further improvements in the capabilities of this exciting technology, working closely with vendors and other global operators.”

During the HFCC/G.fast project, lab trials were performed by BT, Orange, Telefonica and TNO, the group said, adding that BT will start G.fast pilots this summer in two UK cities -- Huntingdon and Gosforth – involving about 4,000 business and home connections.

Proving that investors are willing to place bets on the potential of G.fast, an emerging standard that will bring 1-Gig capabilities to DSL networks, ahead of widespread deployments, chipmaker Sckipio announced Monday that it has raised a $17 million “B” round.

Following the B round, led by Israel-based Petango Venture Capital, Sckipio has raised $27 million since its founding in 2012. Existing investors Gemini Israel Ventures, Genesis Partners, Amiti Ventures and Aviv Ventures also participated in Sckipio’s B round.

The investment announcement comes just days after the ITU awarded final approval to the G.fast standard, which aims to deliver aggregate (downstream plus upstream) 1 Gbps capabilities to DSL over relatively short loop lengths, enabling some telcos to compete more closely with cable’s DOCSIS 3.0 and coming DOCSIS 3.1 platforms while also deferring costly fiber-to-the-home deployments.

Sckipio, which counts Broadcom among its competitors, has already introduced G.fast chips for network and CPE equipment, and has at least ten design wins, including deals with Lantiq, VTech, XAVi and Zinwell.

On the service provider side, Sckipio will be involved in at least five lab trials with tier-1 service providers this year, a group that includes U.S.-based companies, according to Michael Weissman, Sckipio’s vice president of marketing.

“This is a worldwide opportunity. The pressure we have from service providers is overwhelming,” he said, noting that DSL service providers continue to face performance pressure from cable operators and will need a technology like G.fast to handle bandwidth-intensive services like 4K video.

Weissman won’t predict when Sckipio will achieve profitability, but said he expects the company to begin volume shipments next year, possibly by mid-2015. He said multiple-dwelling unit environments served by DSL around the world are seeing the most pressing need for G.fast.

Among major vendors, Alcatel-Lucent recently introduced a G.fast optical network terminal that will launch in the first quarter of 2015, and claims to have run about a dozen of operator trials, including tests with A1 Telekom Austria, BT and Orange.

G.fast requires a noise-cancellation technology called vectoring, which is already in use today by operators that have deployed VDSL. KPN of the Netherlands, Swisscom, BT, Belgacom, Deutsche Telekom, A1, and AT&T and CenturyLink Communications are among telcos that have implemented vectoring.

While analysts see the potential value of G.fast, they have also expressed that it’s too early to say if the technology will be adopted on a massive basis or if it will be used more surgically in areas where telcos are feeling the most competitive heat from cable operators and other broadband rivals. 

G.fast, the technology that will bring 1-Gig speeds to DSL, reached a milestone Friday as the members of the ITU awarded final approval to the standard.

G.fast aims to upgrade the speed capabilities of  DSL networks without the expense of deploying FTTP, but telcos won’t be able to take advantage of such speeds unless the loop lengths are relatively short.  

But in those situations, G.fast will give telcos a way to hold off on FTTP upgrades and unlock more DSL capacity in a way that makes the technology more competitive with cable’s current DOCSIS 3.0 platform and the coming DOCSIS 3.1 platform, which is targeting multi-gigabit speeds. G.fast could also position DSL to support more bandwidth-intensive services and applications such as 4K streaming and WiFi backhaul.

Friday’s ITU approval is for the physical-layer protocol aspects of G.fast, and follows approval in April of a companion text specifying methods to ensure that G.fast equipment will not interfere with broadcast services such as FM radio. Work on an “extended set of features” for G.fast, including the inclusion of a range of low-power states, is underway.

The ITU noted that The Broadband Forum has begun developing a test suite and certification program for G.fast systems, with a beta trial anticipated by mid-2015. Certified G.fast implementations are expected to appear on the market before the end of 2015, the ITU said. The University of New Hampshire InterOperability Laboratory is the first testing lab on board for G.fast certification testing.

“The time from G.fast’s approval to its implementation looks set to be the fastest of any access technology in recent memory. A range of vendors has begun shipping G.fast silicon and equipment, and service providers’ lab and field trials are well underway,” said Dr.Hamadoun I. Touré, the ITU’s Secretary-General, in a statement.

Chipmakers are already developing G.fast products, with some expecting to reach volume production by mid-2015.  Alcatel-Lucent and Adtran are among vendors that have been talking about upcoming G.fast trails with operators.

G.fast’s 1-Gig claim represents  the aggregate data capacity (upstream plus downstream) it's gunning for. And while G.fast, which requires a noise-cancellation technology called vectoring (in use already by telcos such as KPN of the Netherlands, Swisscom, BT, Belgacom, Deutsche Telekom and AT&T),  it's usable within 400 meters of a distribution point, though industry analysts hold that G.fast will need much shorter loop lengths to achieve a sizable data boost.

Given some of those limitations and questoins, analysts who track the broadband access market and are keeping tabs on G.fast aren’t ready to call it a home run. But they understand the value proposition.

“G.fast is going to have legs, but the question is how long are those legs going to be,” Teresa Mastrangelo, founder of marketing analysis and consulting firm Broadbandtrends, said in a recent interview with Multichannel News (subscription required). “The telcos are excited about the potential for G.fast and the speed that it can provide.”

At the time, Mastrangelo said operators will need loop lengths in the range of 25 meters to 40 meters to get the biggest bang out of G.fast, but notes that the initial trials are using more realistic loop lengths that enable speeds in the vicinity of 100 Megabits per second to 200 Mbps.

While cable’s DOCSIS 3.1 platform looks to extend the life of HFC networks, an emerging technology called G.fast aims to perform a similar trick for DSL for the telcos as they look for ways to squeeze more speed out of their widely deployed copper-based networks.  

While interest in G.fast and its 1-Gig potential reached frothy levels last week at the Broadband World Forum in Amsterdam as chipmakers and network equipment suppliers trotted out their latest wares based on the technology, analysts agreed that the G.fast has the potential to pump more life into DSL, but also questioned whether it will be a big hit, let alone  a home run, for the telcos as they look for G.fast to turn copper into broadband gold.

But the potential for G.fast, which brings a new, speedy twist to the twisted pair, is indeed sizable, as telcos would certainly be eager to squeeze more speed out of their DSL lines and deliver services that can more closely compete with cable’s widely-deployed DOCSIS platform before having to take the plunge with pricey fiber-to-the-home upgrades.

But tying G.fast to any 1-Gig speed claims is somewhat of a misnomer,  as that represents  the aggregate data capacity (upstream plus downstream) it can achieve. And there’s another key caveat – G.fast, which requires a noise-cancellation technology called vectoring, requires very loop lengths (250 meters or less) for the platform to achieve a sizable data boost.

As would be expected, suppliers and chipmakers are bullish on the prospects of G.fast, even before the standard is fully baked. Most of the heavy lifting on the standards front was complete by last December, giving chipmakers enough confidence to move ahead with product designs, knowing that any small ticket changes can be handled in software.

“We still see a ton of value that we can unlock in the copper plant with advanced DSL technologies.” Jim McKeon, Broadcom’s senior director, product marketing, Broadband Carrier Access, said. Broadcom is a big enough believer in the technology that it has developed and introduced G.fast-based silicon for home-side gateway and network-facing equipment  (please look further below for a snapshot of last week’s G.fast action).  He expects Broadcom’s products to be ready for full production by the first half of 2015.

McKeon said Broadcom’s approach is backwards compatible with VDSL, allowing telcos to perform incremental upgrades. “Introducing G.fast will be a very straightforward exercise,” he said, predicting that there will be significant field trials underway next year alongside some small deployments before rollouts kick into high gear in 2016. “There’s a surprising amount of urgency coming out of the telcos for G.fast.”

And that interest has been global, he said, noting that there are about 400 million lines of DSL installed. “We’re still seeing a lot of potential in wireline broadband. We wouldn’t be investing in it if we didn’t see that,” McKeon said.

G.fast: Big Potential, Big Questions

Analysts who track the broadband access market and are keeping tabs on G.fast aren’t ready to call it a home run.  But they understand the value proposition.

“G.fast is going to have legs, but the question is how long are those legs going to be,” Teresa Mastrangelo, founder of marketing analysis and consulting firm Broadbandtrends, said. “The telcos are excited about the potential for G.fast and the speed that it can provide.”

Jeff Heynen, principal analyst, broadband access and pay TV, at Infonetics, expects to issue his first G.fast forecast early next year, but said the total addressable market for the technology won’t be a straightforward exercise.

 While telcos that are doing vectoring now, such as KPN of the Netherlands, Swisscom, BT, Belgacom, Deutsche Telekom, A1 Telekom Austria,  and even AT&T and CenturyLink Communications, are among the candidates for G.fast, “I don’t think it’s a one-to-one relationship,” he said.

 “Will G.fast be massively adopted? I’m still not sure,” Heynen said.

Both analysts also wonder if some telcos will decide that it makes more financial sense to just pull fiber all the way to the premises once they start looking at the short loop lengths required by G.fast.

Mastrangelo said operators will need loop lengths in the range of 25 meters to 40 meters to get the biggest bang out of G.fast, but notes that the initial trials are using more realistic loop lengths that enable speeds in the vicinity of 100 Megabits per second to 200 Mbps.

And she expects that wide deployments of  G.fast will require some significant network engineering, which could steer telcos toward more surgical deployments in area where they are feeling the most competitive heat, perhaps look at driving deployment on a demand-based preregistration model, such as the one Google Fiber uses for FTTP.

G.fast’s Big Week

Last week’s Broadband World Forum in Amsterdam produced a wave of G.fast activity. Here’s a snapshot:

-Alcatel-Lucent unveiled a G.fast optical network terminal that will launch in the first quarter of 2015 following 12 trials with operators, including A1 Telekom Austria, BT and Orange.

-Adtran said it has G.fast trials underway with unnamed service providers in Europe, North America and Asia Pacific.

-The Broadband Forum announced its G.fast certification program, and identified the University of New Hampshire InterOperability Laboratory as the first testing lab for that effort. UNH-IOL expects to begin initial G.fast product testing in the first half of 2015, and to announce its first wave of certifications next fall.

-Broadcom added G.fast capabilities to its BCM63138 gateway system-on-chip, and a new family of G.fast-facing chipsets for DSL central offices – the BCM65200 DSP and BCM65900 analog front end.

-Sckipio Technologies demonstrated a “commercial” G.fast chipset (the DP3016-EVM DPU) with built-in vectoring connecting at rates of up to 700 Mbps on 16 ports simultaneously.  Sckipio partners Lantiq, VTech, XAVi, and Zinwell were among those that showed off gateways and bridges that used the new silicon.

Arris, amplifying that it’s no longer largely cable-focused shop more than a year after closing its acquisition of Motorola Home, has launched a new line of DSL and fiber-to-the-home gateways.

Its new product family – the NVG340 and NVG370 series – delivers voice, video, and data services, and will be on show at the Broadband World Forum, slated for Oct. 21-23 in Amsterdam.

The new gateway lineup, to be commercially available early next year, features WiFi, traffic management components and remote management elements, Arris said.

By access network category, here’s the new lineup:

NVG340 Series ADSL2+/VDSL2 gateways

-NVG341 - with 2.4GHz 802.11n WiFi

-NVG343 - with dual band 2.4GHz 802.11n and 5GHz 802.11ac WiFi

-NVG346 - with 2.4GHz 802.11n Wi-Fi and VoIP

-NVG348 - with dual band 2.4GHz 802.11n and 5GHz 802.11ac WiFi and VoIP

NVG370 Series FTTH/Ethernet gateways

-NVG371 - with 2.4GHz 802.11n Wi-Fi

-NVG373 - with dual band 2.4GHz 802.11n and 5GHz 802.11ac Wi-Fi

-NVG376 - with 2.4GHz 802.11n Wi-Fi and VoIP

-NVG378 - with dual band 2.4GHz 802.11n and 5GHz 802.11acWi-Fi VoIP

Demonstrating fiber-like speeds without the need to pull glass all the way to the home, Alcatel-Lucent said its Bell Labs research unit has eclipsed speeds of 10 Gbps over copper using a prototype technology called XG-FAST.

The technology that was tested is years away from becoming a commercial reality, but Alcatel-Lucent said the test demonstrates that DSL has the technical capability to deliver fiber-like speeds, and to deliver them to areas where fiber can’t be deployed all the way to the premises.

“It will enable operators to provide Internet connection speeds that are indistinguishable from fiber-to-the-home services, a major business benefit in locations where it is not physically, economically or aesthetically viable to lay new fiber cables all the way into residences,” the vendor claimed.

Instead, XG-FAST, an extension of the G.fast standard that’s currently being finalized by the International Telecommunications Union and expected to be commercially available sometime next year, could enable operators to pull fiber to the curb, wall or basement or a building, and use the existing copper network for the “final few meters,” Alcatel-Lucent said.

While the “phase 1” version of G.fast will use a frequency range for data transmission of 106 MHz, enabling speeds up to 700 Mbps over a maximum distance of 100 meters, XG-FAST is being designed to bump the frequency range up to 500 MHz while also increasing speeds over shorter distances.

For the demo, which was run on “standard copper cable” provided by an unnamed European operator, Bell Labs said it achieved symmetrical speeds of 1 Gbps symmetrical over 70 meters on a single copper pair, and hit 10 Gbps over 30 meters by bonding two copper pairs.

“[B]y pushing broadband technology to its limits, operators can determine how they could deliver gigabit services over their existing networks, ensuring the availability of ultra-broadband access as widely and as economically as possible,” said Bell Labs president Marcus Weldon, in a statement.

Alcatel-Lucent isn’t offering an precise predictions on when XG-FAST would become a commercial reality, but a spokesman acknowledged that it would “probably be a minimum of 3 years,” factoring in issues such as required cost reductions and the standardization process.

The cable industry is further ahead with DOCSIS 3.1, an emerging CableLabs specification that will enable download capacities of up to 10 Gbps down and at least 1 Gbps upstream over an MSO’s hybrid fiber/coax network.

Estimates vary, but DOCSIS 3.1 isn’t expected to reach scale deployments until 2016 or 2017.