G.fast could be key to broadband copper connections

Dr. Eduard Scheiterer, managing director of international markets for ADTRAN, explained that ADTRAN's progress is on pace with the rest of the industry. Forward-thinking companies are expected to have a defined G.fast strategy ready for deployment in 2015. Fiber to Ethernet solutions won't be positioned as direct competitors to fiber-optic cables. Instead, technology like ADTRAN's 500G series is designed to serve as a supplementary resource. In scenarios where hooking up to fiber seems impossible, G.fast technology can be used to fill the gap.

Caveats limit adoption
All new technology comes with its share of shortcomings and G.fast is no different. First, the 1 gigabyte speeds boasted by G.fast developers is not entirely accurate. Technically the number is a combination of upstream and downstream speeds, leaving the top speed of G.fast short of of the gigabit standard. Furthermore, the technology can only be used in local loops and requires companies to deploy another solution called "vectoring," noted MultiChannel News. This noise-cancelling technology minimizes slowdown caused by the crosstalk that occurs along copper broadband connections.

Perle has an extensive range of Managed and Unmanaged Fiber Media Converters to extended copper-based Ethernet equipment over a fiber optic link, multimode to multimode and multimode to single mode fiber up to 160 km.