Party up in here! G.fest kicks off Broadband World Forum

A G.fast fest dominated the first day’s keynote session at Broadband World Forum here in London, as internet service providers the world over look to make copper sweat.

It all started with under fire Openreach, whose CEO Clive Selley delivered what could only be described as a meticulously-prepared and heavily PR’d address. Rarely daring to venture up from his script, Selley explained why G.fast is for the time being a more feasible means of delivering superfast broadband to the masses.

It’s more than just about the happy few, and that’s what you get with fibre, was the message. Fibre rollout to beyond the cabinet gets exponentially more expensive and difficult, said Selley, so for the time being G.fast will just have to do.

Read more on Openreach’s keynote over at sister site Light Reading – here.

Meanwhile, Swisscom has walked the walk following Openreach talking the talk, by going ahead and claiming a European first commercial G.fast deployment.

“I am proud that I can announce a commercial rollout of G.fast in Switzerland as of today,” said Heinz Herren, Swisscom CTO. “I believe this is the first European launch of G.fast commercially.”

The Swiss incumbent took a novel approach to rollout, by utilising fibre-connected manhole covers as a distribution point for G.fast. Herren believes this deployment will be able to comfortably handle speeds of around 400 – 500 Mbps. But, astutely, Swisscom is apparently building out its infrastructure to be easily replaced by full fibre in years to come. More over on Light Reading.

Finally, Australia’s NBN said lab trials with Nokia prove that 8 Gbps is theoretically possible, using XG.fast. It’s basically like G.fast, but with a little bit Xtra. NBN’s principal technology officer Daniel Willis told Broadband World Forum the peak speed was reached over 30m of twisted-pair copper, with a hefty 5 Gbps still being possible over 70m.

Like the others, a full recap is available at Light Reading.