SingTel aims for 100Mbps over copper

Stuart Corner
Thursday, 29 June 2006 15:22

Business IT - Technology

SingTel will use VDSL2 technology from Ericsson in a trial network that will deliver ultra-high speed broadband services deployed over existing copper lines.
According to Ericsson, this will make SingTel the first operator in South East Asia to deploy VDSL2, "the most advanced standard of xDSL ... [that] will benefit operators with large-scale deployment of triple play services (voice, video and data) as it has inherent features enabling optimal user experiences for broadband services."

According to Ericsson, one of the most important aspects of the VDSL2 standard is that it uses ethernet as multiplexing technology in the first mile. "The elimination of ATM in the first mile means that the access architecture can be simplified into an end-to-end ethernet access architecture that uses VLANs as the service-delivery mechanism across the entire access network.

"Within the VDSL2 standard, features such as dual latency enable quality to be built into the network in all layers, which will be needed to handle all aspects of providing upcoming services such as IPTV."

Singapore's Infocomm Development Authority (IDA) in March issued a request-for-concept (RFC) for Singapore's next generation national broadband network and intends to launch a formal launch a request-for-proposal (RFP) later this year against which interested parties will be able to bid for the construction, deployment and operation of the network. It will be required to support symmetric speeds of 1Gbps or more, with initial provisioning of 100Mbps.