The new broadband technology being championed by BT is a cost-effective way of delivering fast internet speeds, an expert has said. Lincoln Lavoie said fibre broadband is a futureproof long-term solution but comes “at a huge cost”. He said G.fast, which uses a combination of fibre cables and existing copper wires, is a “great solution” that can make the most of the UK’s current infrastructure.
G.fast is currently being trialled by BT customers in Gosforth, Newcastle, and Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, while technical trials are taking place at BT's laboratory in Swansea, south Wales. Across the Atlantic, engineers at the University of New Hampshire’s InterOperability Laboratory (UNH-IOL) are carrying out the last stage of trials and helping manufacturers prepare for the commercial launch of G.fast services.
Mr Lavoie, a senior engineer at UNH-IOL, said G.fast is “hugely fast” – capable of speeds up to 800Mbps over 100 metres – and doesn’t require fibre to be run all the way into a premises. “A lot of operators are talking about single port units that go on the side of the house or at the telephone pole directly outside the house,” he told Cable.co.uk. “They want to get that fibre as close to the premises as they can without having to drill a hole in your wall to bring the fibre into the house because people don’t like it when you dig up their gardens and drill holes in their walls.”