Swisscom announces pilot of DSL+LTE bonding tech

Swiss telco Swisscom is set to commence a residential pilot of a technology that allows the dynamic combination of fixed and mobile networks to increase the bandwidth of both.

DSL+LTE bonding is a relatively new technology that is software-based, in keeping with the move towards virtualised, software-defined network management. It allows a given user to combine their DSL and LTE data streams into one, this increasing the bandwidth. This combined stream is then dynamically managed to ensure the optimum combination is used.

Swisscom says it’s trying out a few new technologies in a bid to satisfy exponentially growing demand for data from its customers. As well as the DSL+LTE bonding trial it has developed an LTE receiver that picks up the mobile data stream and passes it on via WLAN to a DSL router equipped with this software, which then combines the streams.

The initial trial, to be conducted later this month, will support bandwidths of up to 20 Mbps, with higher bandwidth trials to come. The main purpose of these trials will be to determine whether the technology is commercially viable.

The supplier of the DSL+LTE bonding software wasn’t named, but regardless here’s a video from Tessares that explains how its version of this tech works.