Deutsche Telekom doubles broadband speed with vectoring

German incumbent Deutsche Telekom plans to use vectoring technology to double speeds on its VDSL network, theoretically enabling it to deliver speeds up to 100Mbps for downloads and 40Mbps for uploads.

Deutsche Telekom’s CEO Rene Obermann has revealed the plans in an interview on the telco’s website on the company’s future strategy. Obermann said that in order to use vectoring Deutsche Telekom would need permission from the Federal Network Agency, the German regulator, but observed that the Belgian regulator had already given permission for its market.

“”It would be nice if we could use this technology in Germany—the broadband targets of the federal government could be achieved much more quickly,” Obermann said.

Vectoring is a method of reducing noise over copper lines, helping to improve speeds over the copper link between the cabinet and homes. Obermann said that the company preferred fibre-to-cabinet due to the high costs of laying fibre direct to homes and businesses and hinted that vectoring could enable the company to provide better speeds to rural customers. He said that state funding should be used to bridge the gap when it was not economically viable for the telco.

Obermann praised the recent announcement from European Digital Commissioner Neelie Kroes that wholesale prices for broadband lines would not be lowered in order to improve the economics for incumbents to expand their networks.

Deutsche Telekom is looking to cover 24 million households over the next four years with super-fast connections, doubling its current figure of 12 million. This would be achieved with a mixture of fibre-to-the-cabinet and HSPA and LTE connections, Obermann said.

European Digital Commissioner Neelie Kroes is a keynote speaker on Day One of the broadband Broadband World Forum 2012, taking place on the 16 – 18 October 2012 at the RAI Exhibition and Convention Centre, Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Click here now to register your interest.