Australia's National Broadband Network (nbn) is working with the leading access network vendor, ADTRAN for the roll out of Gfast over its copper lines in 2018.
nbn trialed Gfast technology in October 2015, achieving speeds of 600Mbps on a 20 year-old stretch of 100 metre copper cabling, and will conduct further testing before its 2018 launch.
In bringing ADTRAN Gfast solutions into nbn’s Multi Technology Mix (MTM), the operator will be able to deliver ultra-fast speeds on its FTTB and FTTC networks.
At the same time, nbn is also conducting DOCSIS 3.1 trials on its Hybrid Fibre Coaxial (HFC) network - previously Telstra's pay TV cable, as part of its multi-technology approach to deliver ultra broadband network. In lab trials of the new DOCSIS 3.1 technology conducted in Melbourne, nbn achieved downstream speeds of 1Gbps – on par with the top speed available for retailers on the nbn Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network.
Early this year, the Operator announced that it has successfully tested Nokia's universal NG-PON fiber solution which includes three different PON technologies - 40Gbps symmetrical TWDM-PON, 10Gbps symmetrical XGS-PON and 2.5Gbps.
As for the G.Fast rollout, the Operator will also be working with two other vendors in the space, Nokia and NetComm Wireless.
JB Rousselot, Chief Strategy Officer, nbn
Using Gfast means we will be able to deliver ultra-fast internet capability to our Fibre-to-the-Curb (FTTC) and Fibre-to-the-Building (FTTB) customers, giving them access to transformative, ultra-fast services more rapidly and cost-effectively than over a Fibre-to-the-Premises connection.
Jay Wilson, SVP, Technology and Strategy, ADRAN
Since demonstrating the industry’s first fully sealed FTTdp solution in early 2010, ADTRAN Gfast solutions now support open SDN principles ensuring rapid plug and play deployment capability within multi-vendor networks.
