Huawei announces first Latin American G.fast trial with Cable & Wireless

Huawei and Cable & Wireless Communications have claimed the first successful trial of ‘the fastest copper based broadband service across Latin America’ using G.fast technology.

The trial was conducted specifically by CWC Panama, where it is the largest telecoms service provider. It lasted two months and averaged 500 Mbps download and 150 Mbps upload over existing copper fixed lines.

“We are thrilled to announce that Cable & Wireless Panama was the first market across Latin America to have successfully completed testing of the G.fast technology, which can deliver high speeds, to its customers through the fastest copper based fixed line broadband technology across the region reaching speeds of 500 Mbps,” said Carlo Alloni, Group CTIO of Cable & Wireless Communications.

“G.fast is the right way to extend the existing fixed line infrastructure to the gigabit access era by accelerating a future oriented ultra-broadband solution with unparalleled user experiences,” said Stephen Ma, CEO of Huawei for the Caribbean.

In a year when Nokia will complete its acquisition of Alcatel-Lucent and Ericsson will entrench its partnership with Cisco Huawei is under pressure to prove its fixed line credentials. The Chinese giant competes especially well in developing regions, so this announcement is a good start.

In other G.fast news Kevin Foster, Chairman of the Broadband Forum, warned at CES that operators need to get a move on with the copper line technology.

“It’s all about delivering tomorrow’s consumer trends, like 4K video, location-based services, security, home automation, video sharing, gaming and home office collaboration, today” he said. “One of the issues is that you need more bandwidth and there’s only a few ways we can deliver 4K effectively with the bandwidth needed. G.fast, therefore, is a viable way of getting technologies out there quickly and effectively.”