FTTC G.Fast - 300Mb/s from the FTTC cab?

bk · 12-05-2016 6:21pm #1

We have previously talked about G.Fast, the next generation technology for delivering broadband over copper telephone lines, the next generation beyond VDSL.

However there have recently been some very interesting developments in the broadband industry relating to G.Fast that I thought are worth discussing.

Previously we talked about using G.Fast in combination with FTTdp, where you pull fiber right to the last distribution point, within 100 meters of a house and then use G.Fast to deliver almost 1Gb/s over that last 100 meters of telephone cable. We spoke about how it was a FTTx technology and really just an implementation detail for FTTH, allowing telcos to avoid the cost of digging up people drive ways to lay fiber into the home.

But now very interestingly BT in the UK has announced that it is going to use G.Fast, not with FTTdp, but instead put it is the existing VDSL FTTC cabs, as an upgrade for VDSL.

They claim that it will be able to do "upto" 300Mb/s at up to 500 meters from the FTTC cab. They claim it will be a very cheap alternative to doing FTTH, while still being a nice upgrade to their 80Mb/s VDSL.

In fact it not only will likely be a cheap alternative to FTTH, but it will also likely be much cheaper then the original VDSL rollout cost. No new fiber will need to be pulled, they will simply use the excess fiber available at the FTTC nodes. No new civil engineering will be needed as it will simply drop into or on top of the existing FTTC cabs and that also saves planning permission related costs. And finally no new electrical work required as the FTTC cabs are already powered. The only slightly costly part is that an engineer needs to visit the customers house again, to install a new face plate and modem.

But still, in all, if it really does achieve these speeds, then it could be a very nice, relatively easy and cheap upgrade to VDSL!

I wonder if Eir are thinking of following BT's lead on this and might do the same.

300Mb/s won't really seriously compete with Virgin, who already do 360Mb/s and could probably easily do 500Mb/s tomorrow if they wanted and up to 1Gb/s with a little extra effort, but it could allow Eir to continue to offer "good enough" broadband to keep their customers happy for the time being.

Now I'm still convinced that FTTH is the future and that Eir will eventually upgrade every single home to FTTH. However realistically, laying fiber is a labour intensive job that just takes a lot of time. Even going at full whack, I still expect it to take Eir at least 10 to 15 years to upgrade every home to FTTH. Leaving every home on just "upto" 100Mb/s for the next 10 to 15 years seems like a stretch. So I wonder if Eir might think of using this new technology to give an intermediate upgrade while they continue to gradually rollout FTTH.

If it can be done cheaply, just upgrading cards in the FTTC cabs, then it might be a nice boost for Eir.

BTW this technology is firmly targeted at urban homes, it isn't really suited as a rural broadband technology. FTTH is still the only solution for high quality rural broadband.

So I have a new prediction for Eir activity over the next 15 years:
1) Go full tilt at rural FTTH rollout (fibre towns project, the blue lines project and hopefully eventually NBP rollout).
2) Starting summer 2017, start upgrading FTTC cabs with G.Fast, to give a boost to urban areas upto 300Mb/s. Eventually 500Mb/s might be possiblewith this tech.
3) Once the rural FTTH rollout finishes, switch focus to rolling out FTTH in urban areas, bringing 1Gb/s to the whole of Ireland eventually.

As ever, exciting times ahead.

tsue921i8wljb3 · 12-05-2016 6:48pm

bk wrote: »

We have previously talked about G.Fast, the next generation technology for delivering broadband over copper telephone lines, the next generation beyond VDSL.

However there have recently been some very interesting developments in the broadband industry relating to G.Fast that I thought are worth discussing.

Previously we talked about using G.Fast in combination with FTTdp, where you pull fiber right to the last distribution point, within 100 meters of a house and then use G.Fast to deliver almost 1Gb/s over that last 100 meters of telephone cable. We spoke about how it was a FTTx technology and really just an implementation detail for FTTH, allowing telcos to avoid the cost of digging up people drive ways to lay fiber into the home.

But now very interestingly BT in the UK has announced that it is going to use G.Fast, not with FTTdp, but instead put it is the existing VDSL FTTC cabs, as an upgrade for VDSL.

They claim that it will be able to do "upto" 300Mb/s at up to 500 meters from the FTTC cab. They claim it will be a very cheap alternative to doing FTTH, while still being a nice upgrade to their 80Mb/s VDSL.

In fact it not only will likely be a cheap alternative to FTTH, but it will also likely be much cheaper then the original VDSL rollout cost. No new fiber will need to be pulled, they will simply use the excess fiber available at the FTTC nodes. No new civil engineering will be needed as it will simply drop into or on top of the existing FTTC cabs and that also saves planning permission related costs. And finally no new electrical work required as the FTTC cabs are already powered. The only slightly costly part is that an engineer needs to visit the customers house again, to install a new face plate and modem.

But still, in all, if it really does achieve these speeds, then it could be a very nice, relatively easy and cheap upgrade to VDSL!

I wonder if Eir are thinking of following BT's lead on this and might do the same.

300Mb/s won't really seriously compete with Virgin, who already do 360Mb/s and could probably easily do 500Mb/s tomorrow if they wanted and up to 1Gb/s with a little extra effort, but it could allow Eir to continue to offer "good enough" broadband to keep their customers happy for the time being.

Now I'm still convinced that FTTH is the future and that Eir will eventually upgrade every single home to FTTH. However realistically, laying fiber is a labour intensive job that just takes a lot of time. Even going at full whack, I still expect it to take Eir at least 10 to 15 years to upgrade every home to FTTH. Leaving every home on just "upto" 100Mb/s for the next 10 to 15 years seems like a stretch. So I wonder if Eir might think of using this new technology to give an intermediate upgrade while they continue to gradually rollout FTTH.

If it can be done cheaply, just upgrading cards in the FTTC cabs, then it might be a nice boost for Eir.

BTW this technology is firmly targeted at urban homes, it isn't really suited as a rural broadband technology. FTTH is still the only solution for high quality rural broadband.

So I have a new prediction for Eir activity over the next 15 years:
1) Go full tilt at rural FTTH rollout (fibre towns project, the blue lines project and hopefully eventually NBP rollout).
2) Starting summer 2017, start upgrading FTTC cabs with G.Fast, to give a boost to urban areas upto 300Mb/s. Eventually 500Mb/s might be possiblewith this tech.
3) Once the rural FTTH rollout finishes, switch focus to rolling out FTTH in urban areas, bringing 1Gb/s to the whole of Ireland eventually.

As ever, exciting times ahead.

Has this new version of G.Fast actually been deployed anywhere yet? I'd be quite sceptical of any recent BT announcements. There are massive political battles taking place between Ofcom and BT with the regulator wanting greater separation between BT and Openreach.

This announcement of investment by BT is being seen as a form of placation of Ofcom with BT fearing Ofcom will go to Europe to force greater separation between the entities.

With a 2% FTTP penetration the UK market is not one that Ireland should be aspiring to.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/05/05/bt_results/

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/05/09/dont_split_openreach_says_bt_and_well_splash_beelions_on_broadband_and_4g/

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/05/11/why_does_blighty_have_no_fibre_investment_plan/

ED E · 12-05-2016 7:25pm

OpenReach is in a different position to OpenEir as they have a mixed stock. Over here we trialed Alcatel-Lucent cabs then deployed Huawei but the brits deployed a mix of ECI and Huawei.

Do we know what vendor is providing GFast LTs? Presumably Huawei but if not it'll be of limited scope.

Cabinets installed as at April 2013

ECI M41 7,732
Huawei MA5616T 3,637
Huawei MA5603T 12,995

Also:

Yesterday’s results from BT revealed that the current G.fast trials would come to an end in September 2016, which represents an extension from the original spring 2016 completion window. As a result of that BT now say that they will conduct a larger scale pilot from Summer 2016, with the commercial launch being tentatively pegged for Summer 2017 (the first time we’ve seen a solid date for their UK roll-out).

We're normally somewhat behind starting these things (though that probably benefited end users with VDSL2 and G.Vectoring from nearly the start). So if we did see G.Fast I'd guess early 2018.

Fake Edit:

Its Huawei G.Fast, poor ECI suckers may get left out in the cold.

The two questions I have are:

A. How full are Eirs current cabs, the riser cabs should have all 4 cards installed for sure?
B. Will they go for Huawei's backwards compatible VDSL2/GFAST config?

Replacing existing cards would probably be very expensive considering they've only just been deployed and not paid themselves off yet. Adding new cards of a lesser capacity might be cheaper. The DSLAMS themselves cost over $2000 without housing or telecomms batteries.

Real EDIT:

At least some are fully populated:
http://www.increasebroadbandspeed.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/closeup-fibre-cabinet.jpg

KOR101 · 12-05-2016 7:59pm

It works for the UK because BT does not face the same FTTH threat from a competitor.

Eir's rural FTTH project exists because they risk losing those homes to a competitor via the NBP. Eir have said cabinets are too expensive a way of doing those rural areas.

Eir's town FTTH project exists because SIRO have started a similar project with FTTH. Eir won't let SIRO be seen to have a superior technology.

Aren't Eir going to be as stretched as possible without the distraction of an interim technology that doesn't answer either of the competitive threats they face.

The good thing here is that both on the technology side, and on the demand side (bundling), things are changing at a rate of knots.

bk · 12-05-2016 11:46pm

Kamila Mango Vignette wrote: »

Has this new version of G.Fast actually been deployed anywhere yet? I'd be quite sceptical of any recent BT announcements. There are massive political battles taking place between Ofcom and BT with the regulator wanting greater separation between BT and Openreach.

BT have already trialled it and are now planning to do a large scale trial (25,000 premises).

The fact that they have gone from a small scale trial to a large scale trial is a very strong indicator that the small trial went well. You don't do a 25k trial unless you are seriously thinking of a large scale national deployment. They did a similar large scale trial before deploying VDSL.

There has been no publicly published results of G.Fast trials or real world performance yet. However the rumours going around the industry seem to be that it is performing very well.

You are of course correct to be suspicious and you are absolutely correct about the tension between BT and the regulators. I'm not suggesting that Eir should do this, but I'm certain they are looking at it and we should be aware of it.

ED E wrote: »

Its Huawei G.Fast, poor ECI suckers may get left out in the cold.

Yes, it is Huawei, which is good news if Eir did decide to follow suit. Huawei really have proven to be seriously impressive.

ED E wrote: »

A. How full are Eirs current cabs, the riser cabs should have all 4 cards installed for sure?
B. Will they go for Huawei's backwards compatible VDSL2/GFAST config?

There is indication of them putting G.Fast mini cab extensions on top of copper cabs and FTTC cabs, so it would seem to be relatively straight forward to extend the FTTC cabs if needed. I'd be very surprised if Huawei doesn't already have a solution in place:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ec/Armadio_PSTN_con_zainetto_G.fast.jpg/220px-Armadio_PSTN_con_zainetto_G.fast.jpg

I'd also be shocked if Eir didn't go with Huawei's GFAST config.

KOR101 wrote: »

It works for the UK because BT does not face the same FTTH threat from a competitor.

There are various companies rolling out FTTH in the UK. But you are correct, they aren't as dangerous threat as ESB + Vodafone.

KOR101 wrote: »

Aren't Eir going to be as stretched as possible without the distraction of an interim technology that doesn't answer either of the competitive threats they face.

While I'm not saying that it wouldn't be somewhat of a distraction, given how relatively easy it seems to be (just straight forward upgrades to FTTC cabs) then I don't think it would delay the FTTH rollout too much.

tsue921i8wljb3 · 12-05-2016 11:52pm

bk wrote: »

I'm not suggesting that Eir should do this, but I'm certain they are looking at it and we should be aware of it.

Oh definitely, especially if it performs well in real world deployments.

ED E · 13-05-2016 12:09am

I can't find any product details on the public side of Huawei's site, only the solution overview (listing the ITUs history of the spec). Suggests it may still be something they're finalizing. Using a riser for line cards instead of patching means a new backplane and control unit which adds to costs, a new LT is a much cheaper proposition if possible.

I think this is something that benefits the UK more, they've got rakes and rakes of housing estates that would all very very conducive to gFast. Whats strange to me is the lack of vectoring across the board, that could offer a very good cost proposition as its all done from CLI at a desk. I can see eir saving the cash to get more kms of glass in the ground that will be in use for 20yrs not 4-6.

bk · 13-05-2016 10:40am

ED E wrote: »

I think this is something that benefits the UK more, they've got rakes and rakes of housing estates that would all very very conducive to gFast. Whats strange to me is the lack of vectoring across the board, that could offer a very good cost proposition as its all done from CLI at a desk. I can see eir saving the cash to get more kms of glass in the ground that will be in use for 20yrs not 4-6.

True, the UK is far less rural, which is why I think Eir will have no interest in it for rural deployment and are instead going straight for FTTH instead.

However I do see indications in the tea leafs that Eir are thinking about it at least for the urban cabs that feed housing estates similar to the UK.

Firstly Eir's CEO has mentioned that they are looking at G.Fast and VDSL2+ (I've never heard of this before, I assume it is the VDSL2-LR2 stuff). Initially I assumed that he was talking about G.Fast+FTTB/FTTdp, a FTTH solution for hard to reach homes and apartment buildings. But now I think they might also be looking at this G.Fast+FTTC.

Here is why I'm thinking that, for the NBP mapping, Eir seemed to suggest that they could commercially meet the 30Mb/s goal only out to 500 meters from FTTC cabs. Everything outside of that would be NBP territory and they have since reinforced this with the blue line project seeming to mostly start 500 meters from FTTC cabs.

This struck me as weird at the time, as Eir's FTTC profiles do 30Mb/s out to 850 meters! Why give more customers over to the NBP then they needed to and risk losing them to another NBP bidder? *

But now this suddenly makes sense, if Eir has been thinking about G.Fast+FTTC and they know it is limited to 500 meters, then they know they can boost the speeds of areas covered within 500 meters of a cab over the next few years using G.Fast, while everything outside 500 meters needs to be FTTH ASAP.

By doing G.Fast+FTTC, it allows them to give "good enough" broadband to most of urban Ireland, so that Virgin doesn't pull too far ahead of them again, while allowing them to focus on rolling FTTH out to homes more then 500 meters from a cab. Homes most at threat from SIRO.

I suppose it all depends on just how good G.Fast performs and how much it costs to rollout and how quickly. If it performs well and is cheap and quick to rollout, then Eir would be foolish not to use it as a stop gap before they get everyone on FTTH.

I've heard it costs Eir €1000 per home passed to do FTTH and €200 to do VDSL+FTTC per home passed, so I'd surprised if G.Fast+FTTC costs more then €100 per home. After all it wouldn't involve buying a cab, civils, electrical or pulling more fiber. Seems like possibly a cheap and reasonable cost to get a nice upgrade.

* Interestingly, if the NBP continues to get delayed, if Eir were to use VDSL2-LR2, then they could possibly push the area that is covered by 30Mb/s VDSL2 out to 1.5km from a cab, gobbling up more of the NBP territory without even doing FTTH.

ED E, I suspect BT's issues with rolling out Vectoring, is their use of two vendors for FTTC making it much more complicated and also the much greater penetration of LLU in the UK then here. BT are also having lots of problems with rolling out exchange launched VDSL. It looks like there is a lot more tension between BT, Ofcom and the OLO's in the UK, then Eir has with Comreg and the OLO's here, too our benefit.

ED E · 16-01-2018 6:39pm

G.fast launches with BT Consumer as Ultrafast 1 and 2
Tuesday, January 16, 2018 4:58 PM
The ultrafast future is here as BT Consumer has taken the cloak of invisibility off of its G.fast services and two new products are on the BT website today, Ultrafast 1 and Ultrafast 2.

G.fast may have a limited footprint in the 100,000 to 290,000 premises region (low figure what we have found to date, high figure Openreach PR) but lots more people are reporting addition of the G.fast pod to their green street cabinet (PCP) so it looks set to grow quickly and will have to if the aim of 10 million premises passed by 2020 is to be met.

https://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/7924-g-fast-launches-with-bt-consumer-as-ultrafast-1-and-2

Poulgorm · 16-01-2018 11:41pm

I am some 1.6 KM from a cabinet and get a download speed of about 11.8 Mb/sec. FTTC fizzles out entirely at about 1.8 km, I understand.

Would gFast improve the range (in addition to the speed) of the current FTTCs?

ED E · 17-01-2018 2:03am

Poulgorm wrote: »

I am some 1.6 KM from a cabinet and get a download speed of about 11.8 Mb/sec. FTTC fizzles out entirely at about 1.8 km, I understand.

Would gFast improve the range (in addition to the speed) of the current FTTCs?

2KM for cabs, 1.7km for exchanges.

Gfast is the opposite, 300m max.

KeRbDoG · 17-01-2018 12:59pm

ED E wrote: »

2KM for cabs, 1.7km for exchanges.

Gfast is the opposite, 300m max.

So this is more for deployment in the middle of a housing estate or apartment blocks if thats the max

ED E · 17-01-2018 4:05pm

Yep, that exactly.

Marlow · 18-01-2018 1:18am

bk wrote: »

* Interestingly, if the NBP continues to get delayed, if Eir were to use VDSL2-LR2, then they could possibly push the area that is covered by 30Mb/s VDSL2 out to 1.5km from a cab, gobbling up more of the NBP territory without even doing FTTH.

That will only work in some of the rural (and urban) FTTC coverage areas.

A lot of the coastal cabinets and the copper connected to these is so poor due to corrosion, that even within 300m of the cabinet, the fastest speed is 30 Mbit/s (stable 28 or less). Kinvara and Westport Quay being good examples.

But even in Dublin, there's a lot of short distance VDSL that only performs at 12 Mbit/s, while other lines in the same buildings do 100 Mbit/s.

The copper network in Ireland is actually in quite a poor state in places. I would guestimate, that 3 in 10 won't perform. They are already not performing at VDSL.

Eircom/OpenEIR has been skimping for too long, while BT actually has had some ongoing investment and renewal in the network. Hence it makes sense in the UK.

/M

enfant terrible · 18-01-2018 1:51am

What speed would you currently need to be getting off FTTC to benefit from this tech?

I'm currently getting 30mbps of FFTC.

Marlow · 18-01-2018 2:04am

enfant terrible wrote: »

What speed would you currently need to be getting off FTTC to benefit from this tech?

I'm currently getting 30mbps of FFTC.

At what distance ?

The issue here is distance and corrosion. If you get 30 Mbit/s at short distance, then I doubt, that G.Fast will perform better for you.

If you're too far away from the cab, then G.Fast won't reach you.

The idea is to boost the speed for those, that now might get 70-100 Mbit/s to something nearer to FTTH speeds. Not fix the ones that already in trouble.

/M

enfant terrible · 18-01-2018 4:32am

Marlow wrote: »

At what distance ?

The issue here is distance and corrosion. If you get 30 Mbit/s at short distance, then I doubt, that G.Fast will perform better for you.

If you're too far away from the cab, then G.Fast won't reach you.

The idea is to boost the speed for those, that now might get 70-100 Mbit/s to something nearer to FTTH speeds. Not fix the ones that already in trouble.

/M

Not sure how far I am from the cab, does the SNR margin tell you roughly how far you are from the cab?

ED E · 18-01-2018 8:46pm

enfant terrible wrote: »

Not sure how far I am from the cab, does the SNR margin tell you roughly how far you are from the cab?

Downstream attenuation is a pretty good metric. Not perfect (capacitance is better), but the best available to you.

enfant terrible · 18-01-2018 9:19pm

ED E wrote: »

Downstream attenuation is a pretty good metric. Not perfect (capacitance is better), but the best available to you.

Cheers Ed,

These re my details

Downstream line rate (kbit/s) 30717
Upstream line rate (kbit/s) 8191
Downstream SNR (dB) 13.3
Upstream SNR (dB) 12.5
Downstream line attenuation (dB) 20.1
Upstream line attenuation (dB) 8.3
Downstream output power (dBmV) 14.5
Upstream output power (dBmV) 7.2

ED E · 18-01-2018 10:14pm

1400m. Supervectoring could help you, GFast wont be applicable.

enfant terrible · 18-01-2018 10:45pm

ED E wrote: »

1400m. Supervectoring could help you, GFast wont be applicable.

Cheers Ed what kind of speeds would supervectoring achieve?

KeRbDoG · 18-01-2018 11:43pm

ED E wrote: »

1400m. Supervectoring could help you, GFast wont be applicable.

Is Eir testing 35b/Super-Vectoring?
Diagram comparison

ED E · 19-01-2018 12:45am

Id have to check, the Germans currently use 35/38 but we're on 17 for CFLMP compliance.

FTTC G.Fast - 300Mb/s from the FTTC cab?

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