ZTE Corporation has announced the start of a G.fast pilot phase with German regional telecoms operator NetCologne. The new technology, which enables transmission speeds of 1Gbps, has already been tested in the lab and the first live connections are now being piloted under real-world conditions. According to a press release from the Chinese vendor, a new type of DSLAM, which fulfils the requirements of G.fast, will be implemented and installed as an interconnection point in building basements. As the DSLAM utilises a significantly larger frequency spectrum than the existing fibre-to-the-building (FTTB) DSLAM, it enables the transfer rate to increase up to 1Gbps.
G.fast technology will become available in NetCologne’s network this year and is expected to serve around 260,000 households; a precondition is that the respective building has a direct fibre-optic connection from the telecoms operator. Further expansion of G.fast is envisaged in the future.