Nbn Co., the broadband venture backed by the Australian government, said it will add G.fast to its access network toolkit as it looks to deliver faster speeds on fiber-to-the-building and fiber-to-the-curb networks.

G.fast is a new standard that aims to deliver gigabit-class speeds to DSL and other copper-based networks. By way of recent example, Sckipio, a G.fast chipmaker, is demoing 4 Gbps speeds (3.1 Gbps down and 900 Mbps upstream) at this week’s Broadband World Forum in Berlin, Germany.

RELATED: Australia’s nbn Marks Broadband Deployment Progress

Nbn, which announced its G.fast plans at the Berlin event, said it will start to adopt G.fast in 2018, expanding on its use of other access technologies that include fiber-to-the-premises, HFC and satellite-based broadband service delivery. It has tapped three suppliers – Nokia, Adtran and Netcomm Wireless, for the G.fast portion of its initiative.

RELATED: NBN Hits 100 Mbps-Plus with Less Costly Fiber-to-the-Curb Tech

Nbn expects G.fast to help it take speeds beyond 100Mbps delivered today on VDSL technology, and hit up to 1 Gbps using g higher frequencies of either 106 MHz or 212 MHz. G.fast is being used in limited ways by telcos such as AT&T, BT, Swisscom and Taiwan’s Chunghwa Telecom.

RELATED: AT&T Expands Commitment to G.fast 

Nbn said it tested G.fast technology in October 2015 and achieved speeds of 600Mbps on a 20 year-old stretch of 100-meter copper cabling, and will conduct further testing before launch.

AT&T said it’s leaning harder on G.fast, a new standard that can help ISPs extend the life of DSL and put 1-Gig speeds in their crosshairs.

Targeted primarily to MDU environments such as apartments and condos, AT&T said it’s deploying G.fast in eight metros, and another 14 on tap.

AT&T, which recently wrapped a G.fast trial in Minneapolis, said the first eight initial launch cities with live G.fast properties include Boston; Denver; Minneapolis; New York City; Philadelphia; Phoenix; Seattle; and Tampa.

RELATED: ITU Stamps G.fast

G.fast-based services are now on sale to MDUs in parts of these 14 metros: Albany, N.Y.; Baltimore; Buffalo, N.Y.; Cincinnati; Colorado Springs, Colo.; Hartford, Conn.; Omaha, Neb.; Pittsburgh; Portland, Ore.; Providence, R.I.; Richmond, Va.; Rochester, N.Y.; Washington, D.C., and Salt Lake City.

Though G.fast is a standard with 1-Gig in its sights, AT&T said it’s using the technology to deliver internet speeds of up to 500 Mbps.

“We’re tapping into the existing internet infrastructure in some multifamily properties to bring ultra-fast internet in less time and with less disruption than replacing the network with fiber,” Ed Balcerzak, senior vice president, AT&T Connected Communities, said in a statement. “While fiber to the unit remains the best broadband solution for most properties where possible, G.fast and fixed millimeter-wave provide connectivity to properties that aren’t able to support fiber. AT&T is committed to providing apartments and condos with connectivity across the nation, and innovations such as G.fast are helping us to do that.”

Frontier Communications and Windstream are among U.S. telcos that are starting to use G.fast for MDUs, but Verizon Communications apparently is not a big fan of the technology.

RELATED: Frontier Gets Going With G.fast

“Our strategy for G.Fast is not to deploy it,” Vincent O’Byrne, director of network planning for Verizon, said last week at the Adtran Connect event in Huntsville, Ala., according to FierceTelecom.

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.

G.fast chipmaker Sckipio and mobile data/voice company  FreedomPop were among the startups that are benefiting from Intel Capital's decision to invest $22 million in ten technology companies. 

Sckipio has been focused on silicon that powers modems and other gear that support G.fast, an emerging standard that brings gigabit capabilities to DSL networks. Ramat Gan, Israel-based Sckipio noted that it showed 1 Gbps running at 300 meters using G.fast technology. How much Intel Capital put into Sckipio was not released, but the startup noted that it represents its third round of funding and that it previously has raised $27 million from venture capital firms Amiti Ventures, Aviv Ventures, Genesis Partners, Gemini Israel Ventures and Pitango Venture Capital.

FreedomPop said the new strategic funding will help it to expand is smartphone lineup, noting that Intel Capital’s backing will help to fund a 2016 commercial launch of a "WiFi first" smartphone that will prefer WiFi connectivity and fallback to cellular when WiFi is not available. That device, FreedomPop said, will use Intel’s new SoFIA mobile chipset to  help users seamlessly switch to and from WiFi and cellular networks. “The smartphone will be available in multiple markets, with launch details to be announced at a later date.” FreedomPop said.

Intel made the funding announcement at the Intel Capital Global Summit in San Diego.  The VC expects to invest more than $500 million in technology companies this year, up from $359 million in 2014.

Here’s a roundup of other Intel Capital investments announced today:

-LISNR: The Cincinnati-based creator of Smart Tones, a new communication protocol that sends data over audio using a high-frequency, inaudible technology.

-what3words:  A London-based developer of an addressing platform that, it claims, allows people to find and communicate a location more accurately than GPS or postcodes.

-Body Labs: A New York-based startup that collects, digitizes and organizes all of the data and information related to human body shape, pose and motion.

-Microprogram Information:  A Taiwan-based Internet of Things startup that makes “turnkey” hardware and software solutions and backend information management services for rental bicycles, taxi fleets, and mobile point-of-sale systems.

-Perfant Technology: Beijing, China-based developer of imaging and video technologies for artificial intelligence, machine vision, 3-D reconstruction and virtual reality.

-Chargifi: London-based startup focused on the development of a wireless charging network that would span coffee shops to hotels, restaurants, offices and airports.

-KMLabs: Boulder, Colo.-based maker of  compact laser systems for research and industrial applications.

-Prieto Battery: Fort Collins, Colo.-based 3-D advanced battery provider focused on commercializing a patented Lithium-ion battery technology.

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.

The worldwide broadband CPE market had an okay first quarter, but it didn’t blow the doors off the place either.

Total revenues hit $2.8 billion in the first quarter of 2015, up 3% year-over-year, but down 2% from the previous quarter, IHS found in a fresh report on the sector. Unit shipments, at 54 million, were flat as service providers expanded fixed broadband service capabilities.

"Overall, the CPE market remains strong, with revenue up 3 percent year-over-year. We expect both DOCSIS 3.1 and G.fast to help add momentum to the cable and DSL CPE market segments and FTTH to continue at its current pace, driven by deployments in China, North America and EMEA," said Jeff Heynen, research director for broadband access and pay TV at IHS, in a statement.

DOCSIS 3.1 is the emerging platform for HFC networks that will support multi-gigabit speeds, with initial deployments expected to start later this year. G.fast is a standard that aims to bring gigabit capabilities to DSL networks when delivered over relatively short loop-lengths and is viewed as a platform that could prolong a telco's migration to FTTP.

IHS said the the top performers in 1Q15 were EPON and fixed LTE, which both saw double-digit percentage increases in unit shipments, and noted that the firm is seeing growth in the market for mobile broadband routers, expecting unit shipments there to jump past 622,000  in 2019. 

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.

Taking more aggressive aim at incumbent telco BT, Virgin Media, the U.K.’s largest cable operator, said it will shell out £3 billion (US$4.6 billion) in the coming years on a plan to expand the reach of its broadband network to millions of additional homes and small businesses.

The initiative, called “Project Lightening,” calls for Virgin Media to extend its broadband network to an additional 4 million premises over the next five years, a move that will extend that total to nearly 17 million premises and, in the MSO’s estimate, create the foundation for 6,000 new jobs and 1,000 new apprenticeships. Virgin Media has set up a web site where consumers and small businesses can register to stay apprised of the MSO’s expansion plans.

Virgin Media believes that Project Lightning will pump £8 billion (US$12.3 billion) of value into the U.K. economy, citing an analysis by Oxera, an economic consultancy. Virgin Media, which is working on the initiative in tandem with parent company Liberty Global, is billing the project as the “single largest investment in broadband digital infrastructure in the country for more than a decade.

Virgin Media’s current, fastest residential DOCSIS 3.0 broadband tier tops out at 152 Mbps downstream.  The number of virgin Media subs taking speeds of 100 Mbps or higher grew by a million during 2014, to 1.3 million, and now represents 28% of Virgin Media’s broadband sub base.

BT’s top tier, meanwhile, offers maximum downstream bursts of about 76 Mbps. The telco downplayed the increased threat by Virgin Media, telling Light Reading that its network already covers 22 million premises, and that the MSO’s expansion plan “doesn’t seem to cover rural areas or huge swathes of the UK.” 

But Virgin Media and its parent company are already thinking ahead. In the announcement about Project Lightening, Liberty Global noted that it is preparing to trial DOCSIS 3.1, a next-gen access platform designed to handle multi-gigabit speeds, “across Europe later this year.” With Virgin Media’s systems factored in, Liberty Global serve a combined footprint of 27 million homes across 14 countries.

Liberty Global is pushing in that direction amid pressure from fiber-to-the-home competition as well as a batch of telcos, including BT, that are placing bets on G.fast, an emerging platform that will bring 1-Gig capabilities to DSL networks.

“Millions of homes and businesses will soon be able to benefit for the first time from broadband speeds at least twice as fast as those available from the other major providers,” Virgin Media CEO Tom Mockingridge said, in a statement. “Consumers and business owners who want to make the switch to better broadband speeds now have an alternative; you can call on Virgin Media to ‘Cable My Street’.”   

The project also garnered a call-out from U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron: “I welcome this substantial investment from Virgin Media which is a vote of confidence in our long-term economic plan to support business and create jobs by building a superfast nation backed by world-class infrastructure. These 6,000 new jobs and apprenticeships will mean financial security and economic peace of mind for thousands more hardworking families across the country,” he said.

Virgin Media ended 2014 with 12.62 million homes passed, 3.76 million TV subs, 4.53 million Internet customers, and 4.21 million phone customers.

On the video front, Virgin Media said it added 585,000 TiVo subs in 2014, including 143,000 in the fourth quarter. By the end of 2014, 68% of Virgin Media’s TV subs, or 2.5 million of them, were on the TiVo platform

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.