Openreach, BT’s local network business, and Huawei teamed up to run a Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) trial that could boost backhaul speeds to as high as 40Gbps over single fiber.
The trial network runs between the University of Suffolk, Ipswich Exchange, and BT’s world renowned R&D centre at Adastral Park. The most common FTTP technologies in the UK today offer maximum speeds of up to 330Mbps, with a single fibre transmitting 2.5Gbps of capacity, which is then shared between customers.
But this latest breakthrough shows that much greater capacity of 40Gbps, 10Gbps and 2.5Gbps can be supported along the same fibre, demonstrating how FTTP networks can be future-proofed to stay well ahead of prospective demand for bandwidth.
The different technologies use separate wavelengths, meaning that all three can operate seamlessly on the same fibre network, known as “co-existence”. This demonstrates not only how operators can flex to meet ultrafast speeds in the future, but also the latent capability of network that Openreach has already deployed.
The University of Suffolk has been using the service for the past two weeks allowing them the high bandwidths required for today’s demanding research. During the next phase of testing the University will use the high bandwidth for streaming lectures, designing games, and delivering online courses – amongst other services.
Clive Selley, Openreach CEO
Superfast speeds are now available to 9 out of 10 homes and businesses and we're taking fibre further. We're also excited to be bringing the country ultrafast speeds. We’ll be taking ultrafast to up to 12 million UK premises by the end of 2020, and to the majority by 2025.
Jeff Wang, president of Huawei Access network
Huawei’s investment and innovation in both fibre and copper based technologies will help Openreach to deploy the ultrafast broadband to serve the UK public for many years to come and help achieve Openreach ambitions of passing 10 million homes with G.fast and up to a further 2 million homes with FTTP by 2020.
