Ericsson Promises 500Mbps DSL – Though like other copper milking technologies, it may never arrive

17 Mar 2009

It seems like at least twice a year, an engineer or company finds an innovative new way of milking some additional bandwidth out of copper — though you’ll note that none of these technologies ever see mass-market implementation. The latest, as explored by PC World, quotes Ericsson as saying they’re developing new vectorized DSL technology capable of 500Mbps “soon.” Ericsson says they’re using six copper pairs to obtain these speeds at 500 meters, though extra pairs often aren’t available at many locations — something Ericsson admits in the piece. More detail:

Vectorized very high bit rate DSL2 will be used for enterprise and residential broadband, as well as backhaul for mobile base stations, according to McCullough. The introduction of vectoring, and the capacity improvements that comes with it, will help copper stay a viable option to fiber for broadband networks. The question when that will no longer be the case always gets the same answer: a couple of years from now, according to McCullough.

Ericsson also admits that you may as well go with fiber where “finacially viable.” Keep in mind we’re still waiting for mass hardware that supports even two bonded pair regular VDSL2 — something AT&T hopes to use to offer U-Verse speeds faster than 18Mbps at longer loop lengths.

Link to the original article…