ISP TalkTalk Business Confirm 330Mbps UK G.fast Broadband Trial

The business division of residential ISP TalkTalk, which is naturally called TalkTalk Business, has announced that they’ve started a trial of 330Mbps capable hybrid fibre G.fast broadband technology for Wholesale and Partner customers. The commercial launch will then follow sometime this “summer“.

Openreach’s new G.fast technology is technically still in the pilot phase, although it’s expected to cover 10 million premises (c.40% of the UK) by the end of 2020 and several ISPs (e.g. BT, Cerberus Networks and Uno) have already launched packages. Meanwhile other ISPs, such as TalkTalk’s own residential division (here), continue to trial related packages ahead of this summer’s expected commercial launch.

The technology itself works in a similar way to existing Fibre-to-the-Cabinet (FTTC / VDSL2) networks by running a fibre optic cable to your local PCP Street Cabinet, which is then fitted with a vented extension “pod” that houses the line cards (the pods can handle up to 48 ports, but they will soon support 96). After that the G.fast service (part of the FTTC family) reaches your home via the existing twisted pair copper line.

People living within c.250-350 metres of their PCP cabinet should see the most benefit, although faster than VDSL2 (80Mbps max) speeds could potentially be achievable at up to around 500 metres. The top two wholesale G.fast product tiers offer download speeds of up to 160Mbps (30Mbps upload) and up to 330Mbps (50Mbps upload), while a fault threshold for the service has been set at 100Mbps (here).

Apparently the new TalkTalk Business trial will also offer an unlimited usage proposition in order to match their existing FTTC portfolio.

Pete Tomlinson, Commercial Director at TalkTalk Business, said:

“As businesses and consumers, we have developed an insatiable appetite for bandwidth and TalkTalk continues to lead the way in meeting this need, embracing new technologies to make them simple and affordable.

As we continue to champion the drive towards a full fibre future, which for many is still too far away, G.Fast can play an important role in helping customers enjoy the speeds they deserve.”

The above news means that we can expect a number of ISPs, which take some or all of their wholesale connectivity services from TalkTalk Business, to introduce their own G.fast packages for homes and businesses in the near future. The trial itself will begin this month (April 2018) and obviously run until the summer. Meanwhile TalkTalk has also uploaded a short blog on the subject but it doesn’t say anything terribly new (here).

The ISP considers G.fast to be a complement for their separate efforts to extend the build out of their own 1Gbps capable “full fibre” FTTP network, which at present only exists in York but is planned to cover 3 million premises over the next few years (here).