The Broadband Forum and the University of New Hampshire InterOperability Laboratory (UNH-IOL) have announced the first six products to receive G.fast certification.
G.fast is compelling because it leverages existing copper wiring to deliver much faster broadband speeds without the substantial infrastructure costs of full fiber deployments. In the UK, national network operator Openreach has already deployed G.fast to more than 100,000 homes and businesses as part of a large-scale trial across 20 locations, demonstrating the technology’s real-world potential.
“Interoperable, standardized G.fast technology is essential because it enables delivery of next-generation ultrafast broadband at scale,” says Kevin Foster, BT’s General Manager for Architecture and Innovation. “Certification to the Broadband Forum’s G.fast requirements provides an established level of confidence and will reduce test time for both network operators and their communications-provider customers.”
Each of the initial G.fast devices underwent testing at the UNH-IOL to verify they met the Forum’s standards and were interoperable across different devices and silicon implementations. Only after passing those tests did the Broadband Forum grant certification.
The first certified products come from ARRIS, Calix, Huawei, Metanoia, Nokia and Technicolor, using chipsets from Broadcom, Metanoia and Sckipio. More certified devices are expected to be added in the coming months as vendors complete testing and validation.
“This certification program represents a significant technical achievement,” explains Lincoln Lavoie, UNH-IOL Senior Engineer. “Hundreds of rigorous tests assessed system stability, functionality, control and performance, and thousands of hours of close technical collaboration took place between the lab and participating companies. The program has been instrumental in understanding and improving G.fast implementations.”
Openreach plans a full commercial G.fast rollout beginning later this year, with a target to reach roughly 10 million premises by 2020. The Broadband Forum maintains a public list of certified G.fast products on its website for operators and service providers to reference.
Are you pleased to see certified G.fast products becoming available? Share your thoughts in the comments.