Infineon proposes VDSL2 technology

SEMICONDUCTOR and systems solutions manufacturer Infineon Technologies AG suggests the use of VDSL2 (Very High Speed Digital Subscriber Line 2) to overcome “last-mile” Internet service provision hurdles.
VDSL2 is an enhanced broadband technology that runs on existing copper technology and complements fibre-optic systems, said Tony Chen, director of product marketing and business development at Infineon.
“Theoretically, VDSL2 can offer (speeds of) 250Mbps over three kilometres,” he said during a roundtable discussion with local media recently.
Infineon claims ADSL technology pales in comparison to VDSL2 because it can offer 10Mbps speeds over a shorter distance.
And while it may be superior to the earlier DSL (Digital Subscriber Line) technology, Chen said ADSL cannot support triple play convergence. Triple play refers to TV broadcasts over the Internet, phone calls via the Web, and standard broadband Internet access.
“VDSL2 is the future of last-mile connectivity,” Chen said, adding that there are three ways to deploy the technology.
Firstly, it can complement the copper wire used to deliver Internet connectivity to homes from the centre of operations. It will lengthen the distance that copper wire technology is capable of, he said.
In a township, VDSL2 can provide an additional link to the fibre cabinet that is used to connect the town to cyberspace. This, Chen said, can increase coverage as well as bandwidth speeds in the area.
Finally, VDSL2 can be connected to an existing fibre-optic infrastructure to a building, to connect it to the Internet.
Chen said people in such buildings could enjoy the optimum speed delivered through VDSL2 because of the short and equal distances between the floors.
“It is all a matter of linking the last-mile between the remote Digital Subscriber Line Access Multiplexer (DSLAM) to the building,” he said.
Chen also claims that VDSL2 works symmetrically, which means it offers the same upload and download speeds.
For example, if the upload speed is 100Mbps, surfers will enjoy 100Mbps when downloading data too. ADSL upload speeds are typically slower than the download speeds, he said.
A good example of the kind of speeds VDSL2 can offer is that it takes only a minute to download 500 digital photographs, of which each are 1MB in size.
With ADSL, Chen estimated that the same photographs would take about an hour to download.
“Because the upload and download speeds are the same, the entire job is done faster and this is the kind of speeds we need in today’s Web 2.0 scenario,” he said.
Chen said consumers would be able to enjoy services such as high-quality videoconferencing, TV over the Internet, and e-karaoke with VDSL2, which are all bandwidth-hogging applications now.
However, the price of the technology is more expensive than that of ADSL. “It is double the price of ADSL but it can offer four times the speed. Wouldn’t that be worth it?” he said.
Chen declined to predict the uptake of the technology in this country; saying that it would depend on the maturity of the market.
VDSL2 is costly, he said, but does not require any additional civil engineering works to the existing copper wire or fibre-optic cables.
“The only changes that need to be made is the change of the line card at the central operations office and an upgrade to a more powerful modem at the consumer end,” he said.
Such a plan has not been announced by the Malaysian Government and Chen could not give an indication if and when this would take place.
However, he said, VDSL2 has been successfully deployed in Germany and South Korea, with China and Taiwan currently trying out the technology. By JO TIMBUONG
star-techcentral.com