The International Telecommunications Union (ITU) gives final approval to G.fast, the broadband standard promising access speeds of up to 1Gbit/s over regular telephone cables.
Described as a cost-effective complement to fibre to the home (FTTH) technologies, G.fast uses fibre to the distribution point (FTTdp) architecture to combine the best of fibre and DSL. It features fibre-like speeds within 400m of a distribution point and the customer self-installation of DSL, bringing about improvements for customers and cost-savings for service providers.
ITU says G.fast enables bandwidth-intensive services such as 4k or 8k video streaming, advanced cloud-based storage and communication via HD video. It also serves the broadband needs of SMEs, and provides backhaul for small wireless cell sites and wifi hotspots, with "zero-touch" operation, administration and management making new service rollout faster.
“The time from G.fast’s approval to its implementation looks set to be the fastest of any access technology in recent memory," the union says. "A range of vendors has begun shipping G.fast silicon and equipment, and service providers’ lab and field trials are well underway.”
The approval of the physical-layer protocol aspects of G.fast (as defined in recommendation ITU-T G.9701 “Fast Access to Subscriber Terminals (FAST) - Physical layer specification”) follows the approval of the ITU-T G.9700 specification back in April 2014.
For further reading on the technology networking provider Lantiq offers a whitepaper on the topic-- the simply titled "G.fast Technology and the FTTdp Network."