Ultrafast 330Mbps G.fast BT Broadband Trial Gets Underway in Swansea

As expected BT are now starting their third 6 month trial of G.fast broadband technology (ITU G.9701), this time in Swansea (Wales), which will initially offer Internet download speeds of up to 330Mbps (50Mbps upload) before rising to 500Mbps over the next decade.

At present BT already has two large-scale (around 2,000 premises covered) trials running in Huntingdon (Cambridgeshire) and Gosforth (Newcastle) in England. By comparison the Swansea test is a much smaller “technical trial“, which is intended to cover 100 homes and offices that exist inside Multiple Dwelling Units (e.g. blocks of flats) and business centres.

The trial itself is being conducted around the SA1 Swansea Waterfront and Maritime Quarter, which you can see on the map below.

By now many of you will know roughly how G.fast works, but if not then here’s the usual recap. The technology functions in a roughly similar way to the current ‘up to’ 80Mbps capable hybrid-fibre VDSL2 (FTTC) service that dominates the market (often dubiously marketed as “fibre broadband“), except that it requires significantly more spectrum (G.fast 106MHz+ vs VDSL 17MHz) and thus operates best over a much shorter run of copper cable (ideally less than 350 metres).

In keeping with this G.fast can similarly be installed inside / alongside street cabinets (like FTTC today), but the technology can also be delivered from smaller nodes / distribution points that may be built either underground (manholes) or placed on top of nearby telegraph poles.

The related nodes are fed directly by fibre optic cable and often BT will need to bring this cable even closer to your home than an existing FTTC setup, which helps to support the faster speeds. However these nodes still have to be powered by small nearby power supply units at ground level, which may increase the network complexity and maintenance requirements. The diagram below gives an idea of how this fits together.

The first two trials also tested a 1000Mbps Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) upgrade and various tweaks to the somewhat stalled Fibre-on-Demand (FoD2) product, which allows small businesses and rich home workers with deep pockets to cover the cost of having a pure fibre optic line built directly to their property (only available in certain FTTC areas that have been enabled for FoD). By contrast the Swansea test appears to be focused exclusively on G.fast.

Mike Galvin, BT’s MD of Service and Strategy, said:

“This technical trial in Swansea builds on our work in the labs and on the largest customer trials of G.fast technology in the world in Gosforth and Huntingdon.

We will be testing ways of delivering ultrafast speeds to flats, apartments and business units, so the people of Swansea will play an extremely important role in helping us gauge how this technology performs, and how we might deliver it to more of Wales and the UK over the coming years.

We are also grateful to both the Welsh Government and Swansea Council, who are playing a key supportive role with the trial. The people of Swansea are also playing an extremely important part in helping us gauge how the technology performs, and how we might deliver ultrafast speeds to more of Wales and the UK over the coming years.”

Under the current plan BTOpenreach could launch a major UK G.fast pilot in 2016 and the official commercial roll-out would then begin in 2016/17 as per the original plan (here and here). The operator has pledged to make the new service available to 10 million premises by 2020 (roughly 40% of the UK) and “most of the UK” will then be done by 2025, although they will initially only offer the 330Mbps service before increasing to the full 500Mbps over the next decade.

However BT has warned that their plans to invest in G.fast are somewhat dependent upon a favourable outcome from Ofcom’s on-going Strategic Review, which among other things is tasked with examining whether or not to separate BT from control of their national UK phone and broadband network (Openreach).

Speaking of investment, BT has previously indicated that they currently spend around £300-400m per annum on “fibre” and broadly expect that to continue for the next 5 years until 2020, with the majority going towards their G.fast / ultrafast broadband roll-out. This can all be done within BT’s original £2.5bn commercial commitment, partly due to having scrapped their plans for a wider native FTTP deployment a few years ago.

Meanwhile some of BT’s rivals, such as Sky Broadband, view G.fast as a way for the national operator to “sweat its [copper] assets” instead of investing in the deployment of pure fibre optic (FTTH/P) networks across the UK. Mind you the latter would be significantly more expensive and take many times longer to roll-out.