nbn trials new and faster broadband

News that nbn is trialling new broadband technology that can deliver lightning-fast speeds over existing copper lines was announced at the 2015 Broadband World Forum in London by its chief architect, Tony Cross.

According to Cross in a blog post, ‘G.Fast’ is currently being field tested in an office block in Melbourne.

So far testing has achieved “fantastic trial speeds* of more than 600 Mbps” on a 100 m stretch of copper that is more than 20 years old — which he claims is more than five times faster than the maximum speeds most fibre-to-the-premises end users currently order.

The chief architect further claimed that had the trial not reduced the frequency band to avoid affecting other broadband services being delivered over the other copper lines, their trial speeds could have reached around 800 Mbps.

nbn’s next step is reportedly to engage with retail service providers for wider trials. It is envisioned that G.Fast could be deployed in apartment buildings by installing new equipment into basements or could supply a group of houses via a fibre-to-the-distribution-point model — a bonus of this being that installers would not have to enter a person’s home for the process, which would enable a smoother rollout and cause less inconvenience to end users.

Cross also said that the new technology could allow retail service providers to offer a range of product plans, including symmetrical speeds of, for example, 300 Mbps download and upload.

If successful, Australia shouldn’t be too far behind countries such as Taiwan, which have already commercially launched the technology, and the UK, which is currently in final trials.

Cross estimated Australia could commercially launch the new technology by 2017.

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