NEWS: More than 0,5 Gbps over twisted copper pairs at 500m

[Tomi Engdahl]

"Telecom equipment maker Ericsson says the unthinkable is now the possible: 500Mbps transmission speeds over ordinary copper wiring. Looking at the details, though, it's not clear that the news will give Verizon any reason to rethink its hugely expensive fiber-to-the-home strategy... or that such speeds will be coming to a DSL line near you anytime soon."


Ericsson achieves world first 0.5Gbps data rate with new VDSL2-based broadband technology
http://www.ericsson.com/ericsson/press/ ... 7846.shtml

The Ericsson demonstration achieved data rates of more than 0,5 Gbps over twisted copper pairs using the latest technology for line bonding and crosstalk cancellation for DSL, also known as "vectorized" VDSL2. The technology is suitable for fiber extensions, combining fiber and last-mile copper for backhauling.

The demonstration showed aggregated rates of above 0.5Gbps at 500m, bonding six lines. Standards for VDSL2 and line bonding are available today, while the standardization of Vectoring is ongoing and is expected by the end of 2009.


New life for twisted-pair? 500Mbps over copper wiring
http://arstechnica.com/telecom/news/200 ... wiring.ars

Equipment maker Ericsson says it can use copper wiring to transmit data at more than 500Mbps in the lab—but it requires channel bonding and short line lengths. While fiber is the future, DSL and copper wiring may have some life left in them yet.

Using crosstalk cancellation technology and a short line length of 500m, Ericsson was able to see sustained data transfer rates of just over 0.5Gbps. It's the latest telecom maker to report the potential for huge speed increases on copper wiring.

But not on a single line. To get these numbers, the company had to "bond" six different lines together (channel bonding is a technology also seen in cable's DOCSIS 3.0 rollouts, but there it refers to bonding multiple 6Mhz radio frequency channels rather than physical wires), and it used an updated VDSL2 technology that Ericsson refers to as "vectorized" VDSL2.

For DSL, achieving speeds of more than 25Mbps on a single line have been difficult, and operators like AT&T and Verizon have responded by either running fiber further into the neighborhood (AT&T's U-Verse) or running it all the way to the home (Verizon's FiOS). Ericsson's announcement today might put a smile on AT&T's corporate face, since it suggests that copper can continue to be used as a legitimate last-mile solution.

Ericsson suggests that its technology can make plain copper wiring viable again from a cost perspective as operators in the US and elsewhere roll out 4G networks.