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ITU Standardizes 1Gbps Over Copper, But Services Won't Come Until 2015
alphadogg writes "The ITU has taken a big step in the standardization of G.fast, a broadband technology capable of achieving download speeds of up to 1Gbps over copper telephone wire. The death of copper and the ascent of fiber has long been discussed. However, the cost of rolling out fiber is still too high for many operators that instead want to upgrade their existing copper networks. So there is still a need for technologies that can complement fiber, including VDSL2 and G.fast. Higher speeds are needed for applications such as 4K streaming, IPTV, cloud-based storage, and communication via HD video, ITU said." Meanwhile, I'm hoping Google Fiber, FIOS, and other fast optical options scare more ISPs into action along both price and speed axes.
These limitations might keep the others from getting too scared;
"The drawback with G.fast is that it will only work over short distances, so 1Gbps will only be possible at distances of up to about 100 meters. The technology is being designed to work at distances up to 250 meters, though transmission speed is slower at that distace. "
How? It has been a long time since there was any significant improvement in performance when the wires are longer than 1 km. ADSL2+, VDSL1, and VDSL2 perform about equally badly beyond that distance. You can go faster by doing G.SHDSL over multiple line pairs, but that is generally not economical.
Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
OK. So long as G.fast is an improvement over what they're using now, that's a good thing. But until/unless I can get 1 gbps at my desktop, I don't think they should be allowed to advertise it as "Gigabit Internet."
This is the typical phone company thing... "buy Internet service from us!" How fast will it be at my house? "Um, we have no idea!"