Alcatel-Lucent achieves 10Gbit/s over copper

Alcatel-Lucent claims to have managed to achieve a new record speed of 10Gbit/s over two copper pairs. According to the company, its so-called XG-Fast technology offers new possibilities for places where fiber is not installed.

With tests that Bell Labs, the research department of Alcatel-Lucent, has done with XG-Fast technology, the record speed of 10 Gbit/s over two copper pairs was achieved over a distance of 30 meters and a frequency of 500 MHz. This involves traffic in one direction.

Combining several copper pairs is also known as bonding. When testing a single copper pair and a frequency of 350MHz, the speed drops to symmetrical 2Gbit/s, but over a distance of 70 meters. According to Alcatel-Lucent, a normal copper connection from a telecom provider was used in the trials of XG-Fast technology.

Alcatel-Lucent has already developed G.fast, a technology that delivers up to 1.25Gbit/s over 70 meters at 212MHz. The technology is currently being converted to an official standard by the ITU and the network equipment based on G.fast should be available from next year. When XG-Fast will be market ready, the company does not say.

Currently telecom providers use vdsl2 on their copper networks using technology such as vectoring and bonding. This promises speeds of up to 70Mbit/s. With new technologies such as G.fast and XG-Fast, Alcatel-Lucent expects to be able to provide providers with technology in the future to meet the demand for more bandwidth. This is particularly interesting for areas where providers cannot or do not want to install fiber optic networks to the homes.