Gfast map
Updated April, 2018
Dark Blue: Firm commitments from incumbent: BT (10M), Belgacom, Australian NBN, Swisscom, Austria, Bezeq Israel, Chunghwa Taiwan, Telus Canada, Telekom South Africa, SK Korea, (U.S.) AT&T, Century, Frontier, Windstream, Belgium, Omantel
Mid Blue: Smaller carriers in Germany, Norway, Finland, Japan
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Tom Starr, Trevor Linney Headline Berlin Oct 24
- Published: 06 October 2017 06 October 2017
Linney is deploying G.fast past ten million British Telecom homes, with more connecting daily. Trevor, speaking for BT, has always been open about the practical results. Starr has led DSL standards and the Forum for 25 years, seen it all and done it all. AT&T is moving aggressively on G.fast from basements around the U.S., so he too will have lessons from the field.
The new Broadband Forum Access Summit is free. Register through the BBWF website at http://bit.ly/2fXnyYg. BBWF registration on site wasn't free last I looked so make sure to register in advance. The Forum is doing a sister event in Las Vegas on Sunday, October 29th. See you at both. Look for the round fellow with a beard.
After Robin Mersh opens the event, Roland Montagne of iDATE, a respected analyst, will review deployments around the world.
Scared By Cable, Bell Canada Chooses Fiber Over G.fast
- Published: 04 October 2017 04 October 2017
Better TV software long kept Bell's DSL ahead of cable, but both Shaw and Rogers are now deploying Comcast's respected X1 software and will likely catch up. CEO Cope hinted to Wall Street he has little choice but to find the necessary capital.
G.fast was considered until very recently but Bell decided to accelerate their fiber home. They have done most of Montreal and are working on Toronto.
Randall's Xmas: 150 Gigabits, 212 MHz, 96 Port, DTA From Sckipio
- Published: 03 October 2017 03 October 2017
Randall Stephenson at AT&T "needs 1 gig speeds." and promises "1 gig speeds ubiquitously." Sckipio is ready to start delivering, with 212 MHz Amendment 3 chips soon to sample to selected customers - including AT&T suppliers. Using 212 MHz of spectrum almost doubles the capacity of G.fast, reaching close to 2 gigabits between upstream and downstream in lab conditions.
1.5 gigabits downstream should be achievable over the short loops typical in apartment buildings. Adtran and Huawei have demo'd external boxes that can vector 48-96 ports, but Sckipio does not require the complexity of external vectoring. Instead, the first DSLAM supports 24 or 48 ports and can be daisy-chained with others on demand. This reduces the initial capex.
cDTA allows switching between upstream and downstream for each line.
More Gear Passes Interop at UNH
- Published: 22 September 2017 22 September 2017
Lincoln Lavoie sees "cross chipset interoperability and performance at all levels including device software for management and control." Gear with chips from Broadcom, Metanoia, and Sckipio are working with each other at a good speed, usually 600 megabits or higher. EXFO and Viavi testers also passed.
He adds, "Gfast testing has already been more rigorous than any previous certification testing and we are testing individual features more deeply than we have on any previous technology."
"Interoperability" is considered to mean working reasonably together, not necessarily at maximum performance levels. While first generation G.fast is defined to about one gigabit, interoperability testing does not run at those speeds.
Stanton of Adtran: G.fast Will Be Even Faster, But Not Yet
- Published: 23 August 2017 23 August 2017
Customers want 212 MHz but development is still needed. Tom hopes for the first half of 2018, but notes, "The timetable for volume deployment is dependent on the chip suppliers." One European telco was told not to expect much until well into the year. I wouldn't be surprised if few customers are connected until late in the year.
Adtran demonstrated two DSLAMs with Deutsche Telekom. One used Sckipio chips and delivered DTA. DTA allows higher effective speeds by allowing different upstream/downstream splits for each user. Since most systems are configured for a 5-1 or higher upstream/downstream split, the improved upstream can be 5X.
The second DSLAM used Broadcom chips and 212 MHz of spectrum but without DTA.
2019 Deutsche Telekom G.fast On
- Published: 23 August 2017 23 August 2017
Officially mum as they seek government money. In the 2/3rds of Germany that can get cable, DT has been falling behind for years. Mike Fries of Liberty has aggressive plans to expand the cable footprint; LGI's expansion in England and Germany is the largest new wireline network building in Europe. City networks in Munich and Cologne are also upgrading rapidly.
DT is carefully not discussing their G.fast plans as they negotiate with the government for billions in subsidies for vectoring. The 20% of Germany without cable or DT upgrade plans has $4B in subsidies already allocated. DT wants more money, but doesn't want to build a robust network where they have a near-monopoly.