Bell Labs Pave Way For Superfast Broadband Connections Over Copper Wires

Bell Labs, the research arm of telecommunications device manufacturer Alcatel-Lucent have successfully demonstrated broadband data speeds at an amazing speed of 10 Gbps. Moreover, they have done so just by using traditional copper transmission wires. Also, Bell Labs made public a prototype technology that delivers symmetrical ultra-broadband speeds up to 1 Gbps, also for copper wires. Symmetrical service means that the spectrum can be split to provide simultaneous upload and download speed of 1 Gbps.

Although the fibre-cables are preferred over copper lines for broadband, they cannot be made available to every computer for either aesthetic or economical or for lack of physical space. Therefore, in the final stages of the network, existing copper lines can be used as a connect between the fiber and the computer. Bell Labs had been working on a prototype technology called G.Fast which used a frequency range for data transmission of 106 MHz, giving broadband speeds up to 500 Mbps over a distance of 100 meters. The new technology, a development over the G.Fast called XG-Fast was utilised to push those limits further. Using just a single copper wire pair, the 1 Gbps symmetrical speed was achieved but at the cost of distance, 70 metre. The distance factor was further sacrificed for achieving 10 Gbps speed. This speed was achievable for a distance of 30 metre.

Many factors influence the data speeds of over a medium such as cross-talk between adjacent lines and the quality and thickness of the copper cable. These were not included in the experiment because these can be minimized using various techniques and hacks. The main driving factors remain the frequency (the bandwidth being directly proportional to speed) but is limited by the Shannon limit. Also, higher frequencies attenuate more quickly than lower frequencies. Distance too, plays an important part. Longer distances mean large attenuation and thus, slow broadband speeds.

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