How fast is your Internet line? 50 MBit/s? 100 MBit/s? Or even 1,000 MBit/s? Telekom is currently working on an Internet connection that will put previous speeds for end customers in the shade. A whopping 10,000 MBit/s (10 GBit/s) are to be made possible thanks to modern XGS-PON. The planned FTTH accesses are currently already being tried out in test runs.
Rapidly fast via fiber
This should make Deutsche Telekom’s competitors look pale – at least for the time being. After all, the traditional telecommunications company is gaining a decisive advantage with the new maximum speed. The high speeds are to be distributed via fiber-optic connections. At present, model tests are already taking place at the “Network Innovation Center” in Darmstadt. In the context of a video contribution, Telekom let announce this week:
“In the future, we will have the 10-gigabit system XGS-PON. We can then offer 10 gigabits downstream and 10 gigabits upstream in the same network structure”
The project manager at the Network Innovation Center, Ralph Leppla, further said:
“In order to offer 10G products to customers, we need to continue to increase the data rate. The next generation is 25G. And 50G PON systems are also already visible on the horizon”
.
But the first voices could also be heard from Telekom’s technology front. So Dietmar Desch, system engineer, said that you can already visualize the first data of the potential speed in the context of modeling. In this regard, he said that transmission rates far in excess of 8 GBit/s can already be observed. That would be a quantum leap for the normal end customer market.
Necessary infrastructure already exists
Meanwhile, it should not be really costly for Telekom to offer the blazingly fast Internet to its millions of users. After all, the company has already laid most of the necessary fiber optic technology. There is no need to install new cables. The existing cables would have no problem withstanding the speed boost. All that needs to be done is to modify the technology so that a faster connection is “sent” through the fiber optic cables. Leppla made the following comments:
“We have to either upgrade the equipment in the operating stations to new software or replace it.”
And it is precisely this technology that is currently being tested in Darmstadt. Also in the game are a so-called speed server and completely updated network technology. But the newly launched Optical Line Termination sounds particularly exciting. In a sense, this is the branch office from which the Internet signals are distributed to the connected households. In its latest generation, it is precisely this branch that is supposed to ensure faster speeds. But the task that the Internet provider has set itself here does not seem to be without difficulty. Leppla said in this regard:
“The challenge is that we have to offer the service not only to a few thousand connections, but to millions of customers”
Much the same
What will please many interested customers is the fact that nothing will really change for them – except for the much faster transmission rates. This means that fiber-optic connections can be retained in their current form without any problems. All that needs to change, he says, is the choice of the right end device for their own four walls. Whether we will be able to enjoy the speed boost is not yet certain. Keppla himself says that while it may be possible to send 10 GBit/s via fiber, it must of course be economically worthwhile. If customers show no real interest in the high speeds anyway, there is no “business case” either, he says.
