Com Hem trialling 1.2Gbps broadband ahead of commercial launch in 2019

Swedish cableco Com Hem is testing 1.2Gbps symmetrical broadband in Stockholm, ahead of a planned commercial launch in 2019. The trial is part of an upgrade of Com Hem’s HFC network to support DOCSIS 3.1 standard, which could provide theoretical down/upload speeds of up to 10Gbps/1Gbps. The company will run the trial over the course of the spring, with plans to launch a commercial offering with down/upload speeds of 1.2Gbps/100Mbps over large sections of the network later this year, with symmetrical 1.2Gbps to be introduced ‘if there is sufficient commercial demand.’ Thomas Helbo, Com Hem’s chief technical officer, said in 2017 that the operator was looking into building a ‘Full-Duplex’ DOCSIS network in order to be able to offer symmetrical broadband services. Full Duplex DOCSIS is designed to double the capacity available for upstream traffic in HFC networks by simultaneously using the same spectrum, unlike current technologies such as FDD – currently used by DOCSIS – and TDD, used by Wi-Fi and G.fast networks.