Ericsson Demonstrates 0.5Gbps Broadband Using Copper Wires

Swedish Network equipment behemoth Ericsson has demoed a working broadband line that can reach a staggering 500Mbps using ordinary copper cables and Vectorized VDSL2 technology.

This compares very nicely with the odd 2Mbps that the average UK broadband line painfully achieves. Ericsson bonded six copper lines over a distance of 500m to achieve this record, which means that the effective speed per line was around 83.3Mbps.

ADSL2+ theoretical limit currently stands at 24Mbps and Virgin Media's own 50Mbps cable connection has just been launched. The equipment manufacturer used its own proprietary Crosstalk cancellation technology to reduce the impact of noise from the copper cables.

According to experts, Ericsson's take on VDSL2 will be ideal for fibre extensions and could be used to combine fibre-optical and last-mile copper depending on the environmental circumstances.

This is arguably good news in these testing economic times as Ericsson's technology would allow companies like BT to extend current infrastructure and recycle the existing network. But don't expect such speeds to happen overnight.

Article continues after advert

VDSL2 speeds will be particularly useful for delivering HDTV and Video on Demand content to thousands of customers without extensive investments and with a much quicker time to market.

The company announced that it would be rolling out 4G technology in partnership with TeliaSonera in Stockholm as early as 2010.

You can follow ITProPortal.com on Twitter @itproportal.