Ericsson shows off 500Mbps over copper wires

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Ericsson has demonstrated technology that can achieve data transfer rates of more than 500Mbps on existing copper wires.

These speeds were previously thought to be only possible on fibre, but it was claimed that the VDSL2-based technology could offer such speeds on existing copper lines and existing infrastructure.

This would allow operators to enhance fibre deployments, giving high speed services to residential and enterprise users, simply by using existing telco ‘last mile’ copper from the local exchange to the business or household.

However, there is a catch. DSL connections transmit data over a twisted pair of copper cables, which degrades the speed of the connection over time – called crosstalk.

To get over this, Ericsson has developed crosstalk cancellation technology that it calls vectorised VDSL2, reducing the noise from other lines.

The demonstration bundled six lines together, creating an aggregate overall speed of 500Mbps.

However, according to sister site PC Pro, to maintain the quality of the signal Ericsson had to reduce the line length to 500m.

Chief technology officer (CTO) Hakan Eriksson said that the new technology made it possible to use existing copper networks as a backhaul for radio base stations.

This could accelerate the rollout of HSPA and Long Term Evolution (LTE)- based high-speed mobile broadband services.

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