Openserve planning to roll out G.fast technology

Telkom South Africa’s wholesale division Openserve is planning to deploy G.fast technology – which is capable of offering theoretical speeds of up to 1Gbps (for distances of less than 100 metres) – in order to upgrade download speeds over its legacy copper network to 100Mbps, TechCentral writes. However, as the DSL protocol is aimed at improving performance over local loops that are shorter than 500 metres, only a portion of Telkom’s DSL base is set to benefit from the rollout. Openserve’s CEO Alphonzo Samuels revealed that his company will run a trial of the technology in nine neighbourhoods before rolling it out commercially. The company was quoted as saying in a press release: ‘We’ve now have found a way to better make use of infrastructure that is already in place, thus reducing any disruption or possible harm to the aesthetics of the estate or the associated expense … A G.fast node will be installed where the fibre extension is terminated and complex residents will now have access to the higher broadband speeds available utilising the existing copper tail/drop wire.’ Currently, Telkom offers download speeds of 40Mbps over its copper infrastructure (utilising VDSL technology).