WarwickNet Becomes First ISP to Deploy FTTC Broadband Vectoring Tech

Business ISP WarwickNet appears to have stolen a march on rival BT by becoming the first Internet provider in the United Kingdom to commercially deploy VDSL2 Vectoring (ITU-T G.993.5) technology, which improves performance by reducing crosstalk interference, on their superfast SLU Fibre-to-the-Cabinet (FTTC) broadband lines.

One of the big problems with FTTC lines and their VDSL component, which runs between homes/offices and cabinets using existing copper telecoms cable, is that when you get a busy cabinet the copper lines can end up causing interference for one another and this reduces service speeds.

The solution to this is called Vectoring (Self-FEXT Cancellation), which works a bit like noise cancelling headphones and coordinates the line signals in order to remove most of the unwanted interference. BT has spent the best part of almost two years trialling just such a solution (here), although they’ve yet to deploy it commercially and there are now doubts over their future roll-out plans.

By comparison WarwickNet said they hope to gain a “competitive edge” over BT and other FTTC based ISPs by becoming the first to deploy the technology outside of a trial, which they claim could help them to deliver FTTC download speeds of up to 100Mbps and upload speeds of up to 40Mbps.

The provider has of course built a number of their own FTTC street cabinets around the country, often with the goal of working to improve broadband connectivity for business parks.

Ben King, CEO of WarwickNet, told ISPreview.co.uk:

“2015 has been a great year for us and our new vectoring capability really cements this. Customers who use this technology will see a vast improvement, meaning that other providers in the area really won’t be able to compete on the same level.

We’re already beginning to introduce vectoring at sites in Berkshire, Leicestershire and Northamptonshire, and we will be doing so on every site we work on going forward.”

In fairness the challenge of deploying Vectoring to a small number of Sub-Loop Unbundled (SLU) FTTC street cabinets is a lot less complex than the difficulty of doing the same on a truly national scale, which is what BT would have to consider.

At the same time BT also has to contend with the problems that were caused by their recent G.INP upgrade (here), which took time to resolve and that’s important because G.INP and Vectoring are somewhat complementary. BT wouldn’t wish to make a similar mistake with Vectoring, assuming they ever deploy it commercially.