VDSL2 vectoring and G.fast are only as good as the copper wiring that extends to each customer. Up to 45 percent of North American wire pairs are in some state of disrepair.

Verizon has no interest in using advanced forms of DSL as part of its next generation broadband service.

Speaking at ADTRAN’s Broadband Solutions Summit, Verizon’s director of network planning Vincent O’Byrne made it clear DSL variants and copper wiring were not going to be a part of Verizon’s future network platform.

“We have no strategy for G.fast,” O’Byrne told Telecompetitor in response to a question about whether the company would upgrade or deploy advanced forms of DSL as part of overhauling its broadband networks.

Some telephone companies with large legacy copper networks have promoted DSL advancements including bonding, VDSL, and G.fast in lieu of costly fiber upgrades to shareholders and customers to improve the sluggish 6-10Mbps speeds many customers get from DSL service. But O’Byrne said Verizon has had nothing but headaches trying to make its legacy copper network actually deliver the improved broadband speeds those technologies promise on paper.

O’Byrne admitted Verizon’s copper network has not aged well, calling it “poor” in some areas. Verizon’s previous efforts to deploy VDSL and ethernet over copper to multiple dwelling units (MDUs) like apartment buildings and condos turned out so poorly, O’Byrne does not want to repeat those mistakes in the future.

For urban areas and MDUs, O’Byrne stressed he plans to take fiber all the way to each condo unit or apartment and get rid of the copper.

Verizon’s next generation fiber strategy will depend heavily on NG-PON2 technology, which is managed by unpowered splitters and filters — dramatically cutting the hardware costs associated with active fiber networks. Many PON networks are fiber to the premises, but then rely on Wi-Fi or Ethernet wired networks once inside a building. Verizon prefers an all-fiber solution, which is unusual among U.S. carriers. AT&T, CenturyLink and Windstream still use G.fast for relatively short runs of existing copper phone wiring inside MDUs and homes.

Verizon’s O’Byrne believes an all-fiber solution may cost more upfront, but will deliver better longevity, value, and fewer problems over time.

Alcatel-Lucent reported this month next generation DSL technology is a success for the company, with more than five million customers outside of North America now getting speeds up to 100Mbps over ordinary copper telephone lines.

VDSL2 line vectoring delivers more than twice the speed of AT&T’s fiber to the neighborhood U-verse service, and has proved reliable for simultaneous television, broadband, and telephone usage. It will even support 4K video streaming of ultra high-definition video.

Vectoring employs sophisticated noise cancelling to cut “crosstalk” interference to boost broadband performance. Testing has shown VDSL2 line vectoring can offer 100/30Mbps service with copper lengths as long as 1,600 feet. Most VDSL2 services are delivered over telephone networks that replace at least some copper wiring with fiber.

Alcatel-Lucent has shipped enough VDSL2 vectoring equipment to provide service to five million customers, surpassing non-vectored VDSL2. But practically none of the equipment is headed to North American ISPs. Instead, companies including Belgium’s Belgacom, Israel’s Bezeq, KPN in the Netherlands, Telecom Argentina, Telecom Italia, TE Data in Egypt and NBN Co. in Australia have launched vectoring technology, offering service to customers at speeds topping out at 70-100Mbps.

Most customers switched to VDSL2 vectoring see their speeds double, usually from 30Mbps to 70Mbps or more. Providers like Belgacom have been careful to only promise speeds the company can actually deliver. Belgacom’s own tests found 100Mbps service was only completely reliable when the amount of copper between the customer and the company’s fiber connection was kept less than 650 feet, so it has capped customer speeds at 70Mbps for now.

“The prime goal in DSL must be signal quality, integrity, robustness and stability for perfect video grade services,” says the Belgian ISP.

Vectoring technology has been on the drawing board for a decade and is only now achieving success in the market.

Many ISPs are choosing to deploy vectoring because it is less costly than a fiber upgrade and can still meet the speed goals demanded by government regulators. The technology has proven robust even where copper wire networks have degraded. In several European countries, homes are still serviced by indoor copper wiring insulated with paper sheaths.

Alcaltel-Lucent believes even after vectoring is widely deployed, it won’t be a dead-end for DSL service.

The company is working on its next generation “Phantom Mode” technology that combines VDSL2 bonding and VDSL2 vectoring with a traditional voice technology called “phantom transmission.” This combination adds a virtual channel to create three channels over 2 pairs of phone wiring.

In Phantom Mode tests, the company achieved 300Mbps over 2 pairs at 400 meters and 1Gbps (up and down-stream combined) over 4 pairs.

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Alcatel Lucent DSL Vectoring 5-2014.flv[/flv]

Alcatel-Lucent produced this video explaining vectoring technology. (A “CPE” means customer-premises equipment, in this case the DSL modem.) (3:09)

A Wall Street research firm is asking questions about the “mixed messages” AT&T is sending consumers over its broadband offerings.

Ovum Research senior analyst Kamalini Ganguly said AT&T’s fiber to the home (FTTH) network in Austin — set to upgrade customers to 1Gbps next year — is likely to confuse AT&T and its shareholders over the future direction of AT&T’s current fiber to the neighborhood (FTTN) upgrade effort, dubbed Project VIP.

Having spent eight years deploying the U-verse FTTN service, a year ago AT&T chose to expand household coverage and upgrade speeds. That effort, called Project VIP, is still ongoing and until now has reflected AT&T’s projection that 45Mbps downstream (and 6Mbps upstream) should be good enough for the majority of its customers.

AT&T says it intends to boost part of its Project VIP footprint to 75Mbps or 100Mbps with VDSL2 vectoring, but the extent of this is unknown. It has also deployed a small amount of GPON FTTH in greenfield markets, typically designed to support 80–100Mbps to each household. Also as part of Project VIP, it plans to reach 1 million businesses with symmetric 1Gbps FTTH.

However, the GigaPower offering in Austin will be AT&T’s first 300Mbps or 1Gbps mass-market FTTH offering targeting consumers, not just businesses, in a major market. It is also a symmetric offering, meaning upstream will be 1Gbps as well. Those speeds are far higher than what Project VIP will deliver to the majority of consumers. The jump from 45/6Mbps to 1/1Gbps for consumers raises questions around its strategy. The cost issue looms large. Deploying 1Gbps point-to-point FTTH will continue to cost much more than GPON FTTH, which in turn still costs a lot more than FTTN – even with vectoring. AT&T needs to explain better what has changed from last year in the business case for FTTH over FTTN.

Wall Street is asking questions because AT&T has repeatedly denied its fiber project in Austin has anything to do with Google’s intention to offer a similar fiber network in Austin next year and everything to to do with its general broadband strategy. There is increasing skepticism about AT&T’s veracity on that point, particularly after AT&T announced pricing that was suspiciously similar to what Google charges its fiber customers in Kansas City and is likely to charge in Austin. Ovum’s researchers also took special note of AT&T’s intention to “examine its customers’ browsing habits in order to generate incremental revenues with targeted ads and commercial offers.”

There is evidence Google is proving a growing market disruptor, turning cable and telco industry pricing models upside down where the search engine giant threatens to compete. Industry plans to charge premium prices for incrementally faster broadband speed tiers is at risk with Google’s gigabit offer, priced at just $70 a month. Comcast charges up to $300 a month for considerably less speed. Community owned fiber broadband providers are increasingly adopting Google’s pricing model themselves. EPB in Chattanooga reduced the price of its 1Gbps tier from $300 to $70 earlier this year.

“By accepting a ceiling of $70, AT&T may be making it harder to break even,” writes Ganguly. “We may see lower prices cascading down for all broadband services. AT&T runs the risk of de-valuing its own broadband business and ultimately that of others too. On a more positive note, demand for 1Gbps was seen as questionable when prices were unaffordable for consumers and when multiple HD streams can be supported by 40–50Mbps. With these price levels however, demand may spike and boost the business case for 1Gbps.”

Phone companies looking for a cheap way to increase broadband speeds are turning away from fiber optics and towards advanced forms of DSL that don’t bring cost objections from shareholders.

Whether your provider is AT&T or an ISP in Europe or Australia, financial pressure to improve broadband on the cheap is fueling research to wring the last kilobit out of decades-old copper phone wiring.

Alcatel-Lucent suggests VDSL2 Vectoring is one such technology that can enable download speeds up to 100Mbps using noise-cancelling technology to suppress interference.

But the advice doesn’t impress fiber optic fans who suggest any reliance on deteriorating copper phone lines simply postpones an inevitable fiber upgrade that could come at a higher cost down the road.

VDSL2 Vectoring and G.Fast are only as good as the copper wiring that extends to each customer. Up to 45 percent of North American wire pairs are in some state of disrepair.

Vectoring has been described as “pixie dust” by Australia’s former Communications Minister Stephen Conroy. Conroy was overseeing Australia’s switch to fiber service as part of the National Broadband Network. But a change in government has scrapped those plans in favor of a cheaper fiber to the neighborhood broadband upgrade advocated by the new Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull that resembles AT&T’s U-verse.

“Malcolm can sprinkle pixie dust around and call it vectoring and he can do all that sort of stuff but he cannot guarantee upload speeds,” Conroy told Turnbull.

As with all forms of DSL, speed guarantees are extremely difficult to provide because the technology only performs as well as the copper wiring that connects a neighborhood fiber node to a customer’s home or office. Upload speeds are, in practical terms, significantly slower than download speeds with VDSL2. Turnbull expected download and upload speeds on Australia’s VDSL2 network to be around a ratio of 4:1, which means a customer who has a download speed of 25Mbps per second would receive an upload speed of around 6Mbps.

In the lab, VDSL2 Vectoring delivers promising results, with speeds as high as 100Mbps on the download side. DSL advocates are excited about plans to boost those speeds much higher, as much as 1,000Mbps, using G.Fast technology now under development and expected in 2015. VDSL2 Vectoring and G.Fast both require operators to minimize copper line lengths for best results. Unfortunately, dilapidated copper networks won’t work well regardless of the line length, and with many telephone companies cutting back upkeep budgets for the dwindling number of customers still using landlines, an estimated 15-45 percent of all line pairs are now in some state of disrepair.

Assuming lab-like conditions, G.Fast can deliver 500Mbps over copper lines less than 100 meters long and 200Mbps over lines between 100 and 200 meters in length.

G.Fast also allows for closer symmetrical speeds, so upload rates can come close or match download speeds.

This cabinet houses the connection between a fiber optic cable and copper phone wiring.

Providers prefer the copper-fiber approach primarily for cost reasons. There are estimates deploying a G.Fast-capable VDSL service to a home would cost around 70 percent less than fiber to the home service. Workers would not need to enter customer homes either, offering less-costly self-install options.

Telekom Austria and Swisscom are among providers committed to launching the technology. Both countries are mountainous and have many rural areas to serve. Fiber rich providers are also looking at the technology for rural customers too costly or too remote to service with fiber.

Critics question the real world performance of both VDSL2 Vectoring and G.Fast on compromised copper landline networks. Decades of repairs, deteriorating insulation, corroded wires, water ingress, and RF interference can all conspire to deliver a fraction of promised speeds.

Many critics also point to the required aggressive deployment of fiber/VDSL cabinets — unsightly and occasionally loud “lawn refrigerators” that sit either in the right of way in front of homes or hang from nearby utility poles. To get the fastest possible speeds, one cabinet may be needed for every four or five homes, depending on lot size. Australia’s VDSL network, without Vectoring or G.Fast requires at least 70,000 cabinets, each powered by the electric grid and temporary backup batteries that keep services running for 1-2 hours in the event of a power failure. The batteries need to be decommissioned periodically and, in some instances, have caused explosions.

The costs of electric consumption, backup batteries, infrastructure, and maintenance of copper lines must be a part of the cost equation before dismissing fiber to the home as too expensive.

While most rural telephone companies are selling customers 1-3Mbps copper-delivered DSL service, Alcatel Lucent has announced the commercial availability of VDSL 2 Vectoring, a new way of delivering up to 100Mbps over the copper wire telephone network most rural North Americans still depend on for telecommunications service.

VDSL2 combines a fiber-copper hybrid network similar to Bell’s Fibe or AT&T’s U-verse, with interference-cancelling technology called “vectoring” to deliver speeds much closer to the 100Mbps theoretical limit of current DSL technology.

“Alcatel-Lucent’s plan to make VDSL2 vectoring commercially available is very timely,” said Rob Gallagher, Principal Analyst, Head of Broadband & TV Research, Informa.  “VDSL2 Vectoring promises to bring speeds of 100Mbps and beyond to advanced copper/fiber hybrid networks and make super fast broadband speeds available to many more people, much faster than many in the industry had thought possible.”

A new way to boost copper speeds even faster.

Different flavors of DSL are currently in use around North America and beyond.  The most basic form, ADSL, also happens to be the most commonplace among phone companies offering basic broadband service.  For customers up to 12,000 feet away from a phone company central office, DSL delivers speeds usually at 1Mbps or faster.  Customers enjoying the fastest speeds must live much closer to the phone company facilities.  The further away you live, the slower your broadband speed.  In rural areas, consumers can live further away than the maximum distance of the central office, which means no DSL service for those subscribers.

A combination of signal loss and interference, called “crosstalk,” from adjacent copper wire pairs are both the enemies of DSL broadband, because they can drastically reduce speeds.

Telephone companies can address this problem by building new satellite central offices located halfway between customers and their primary facilities.  These offices, usually connected by fiber, can successfully reduce the amount of copper wire between the customer and the company, boosting speeds.  Many phone companies also deploy DSL extensions called D-SLAMs, which can be attached to a phone pole or enclosed in a metal box by the roadside.  A fiber cable connects the D-SLAM back to the phone company, while existing copper phone wires go back to individual subscribers.

More modern forms of DSL: ADSL2, ADSL2+, and VDSL, share some of those concepts.  The key is cutting as much copper wire out of the network as possible, replacing it with fiber optic cable which does not suffer signal loss or interference in the same way.

Many European and Pacific broadband networks rely on ADSL2/2+, which can usually deliver reliable speeds in the 20Mbps range.  VDSL networks offer even more bandwidth, and are the basis of U-verse and Fibe, which split up broadband, phone service, and television on the same cable.  When customers demand even faster speeds, phone companies can “bond” several individual DSL connections together to deliver faster speeds.  Some traditional ADSL providers do that today for their customers, especially in areas where low speeds prevail.

An argument the phone company will love.

Alcatel Lucent says VDSL2 with Vectoring is the next best thing to fiber to the home, because it is cheaper to deploy with fewer headaches from local authorities when streets and yards are dug up for fiber cable replacements.  It also meets the growing speed needs of average consumers.  Alcatel Lucent predicts the minimum speed North Americans will need to support the next generation of online video is 50Mbps, more than 10 times the speed phone companies like Verizon, AT&T, Frontier, and CenturyLink provide over their traditional DSL networks, especially in rural and suburban areas.

Vectoring can deliver results for phone companies with aging copper wire infrastructure, more prone to crosstalk and other signal anomalies.  Alcatel Lucent compares vectoring with noise-cancellation headphones.  By sampling the current noise conditions on copper cable networks, vectoring can suppress the impact of the interference, boosting speeds and delivering more reliable results.

With technologies like VDSL2 with Vectoring promising speeds far faster than what rural North Americans currently enjoy, the Federal Communications Commission may want to re-evaluate its national minimum speed standard for broadband — 3-4Mbps — found in its National Broadband Plan.  Alcatel Lucent promises they can do much better.

[flv width=”640″ height=”324″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Alcatel Lucent VDSL2.flv[/flv]

Alcatel Lucent produced this video to promote its new VDSL2 with Vectoring technology.  The video targets cost-conscious phone companies who are being pressured to deliver faster service, but don’t want to spend the money on a fiber to the home network.  (6 minutes)