Ericsson pushes VDSL2 data transfers above 500Mbps

The demonstration achieved data rates of more than 0.5 Gbps over twisted copper pairs using "vectorised" VDSL2, the latest technology for line bonding and crosstalk cancellation.

It showed aggregated rates of above 0.5Gbps at 500 metres, bonding six lines.

Vectorised VDSL2 is said to enable extremely high end-to-end transmission rates, improving VDSL2 performance by reducing noise originating from the other copper pairs in the same cable bundle.

This increases capacity and reach, boosting the number of customers that can be connected.

Vectoring technology also decouples the lines in a cable (from an interference point of view), substantially improving power management, which can reduce power consumption.

Standards for VDSL2 and line bonding are available today. The standardisation of vectoring is ongoing and is expected by the end of 2009.

VDSL2-based technology offers unprecedented speeds on existing copper lines, opening up new opportunities for operators to provide customers with broadband services such as IPTV. It also makes it possible to use existing copper networks as a backhaul for radio base stations, accelerating future rollout of HSPA and LTE-based high-speed mobile broadband services, according to Ericsson CTO Håkan Eriksson.

But don't expect it to be a technology of choice for Australia's National Broadband Network (NBN).

Colin Goodwin, strategic market manager for Ericsson Australia said the technology offers incredible speeds, but over relatively short distances.

"Its speed is best over thye hundreds of metres," he said. "But beyond 1km you will find that ADSL2+ is actually faster."

The technology might have been applicable to improving last mile speeds in a Fibre-to-the-Node deployment, he said, but Australian homes do not tend to have a great deal of spare copper in the last mile to fuse together.

"Relatively few residential subscribers would have the opportunity of having multiple copper pairs to their homes," he said.

The technology would also be irrelevant to Fibre-to-the-Home deployments, as fibre tends to be cheaper than copper for new roll-outs.

Where the technology does have great applications is among Fibre-to-the-Building deployments in commercial areas.

"You might have fibre connected from the DSLAM to the basement of an office building," Goodwin said. "You can then run bonded VDSL2+ up into all the other floors."