BT Openreach has confirmed that VDSL2 Vectoring (ITU-T G.993.5), which reduces crosstalk interference on ‘up to’ 40-80Mbps FTTC “fibre broadband” lines and thus improves service speeds, is now being deployed at locations around the United Kingdom; specifically focusing on “areas where it delivers the most benefit to customers“.
The technology, which is also known as Self-FEXT Cancellation, was originally created several years ago in order to tackle an irritating problem where lots of active copper VDSL2 (FTTC) lines would effectively create interference for one another.
The result of this crosstalk interference is that FTTC connections can suffer a significant fall in download and upload speed (experiences vary but -10% to -30% performance loss isn’t unknown). As such Vectoring works a bit like noise cancelling headphones and coordinates the copper VDSL2 line signals in order to remove most of that interference.
Recently there has been some speculation about the future of Vectoring on FTTC lines, not least because BT’s forthcoming (2016/17) commercial roll-out of ultrafast 500Mbps+ capable G.fast broadband technology would appear to make spending money on Vectoring upgrades less attractive. On top of that Vectoring is no longer listed on BTWholesale’s latest Broadband Roadmap for the near-term future.
Openreach has now informed ISPreview.co.uk that Vectoring on FTTC lines is still a “key part” of their toolkit and they are continuing to “test and develop its capabilities“. Crucially they’ve also started deploying Vectoring outside of the trial areas, focusing specifically on FTTC street cabinets / areas where the benefit of its deployment would be most keenly felt. Sadly Openreach was not able to offer any further details.
As it stands BT’s focus going forwards is likely to be increasingly directed towards their future G.fast upgrades. As a technology G.fast has been a lot less hassle to test and implement than FTTC Vectoring, although the outcome of BT’s real-world trials may yet impact their plans (these are about to begin).
Source: http://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2015/06/bt-begins-uk-rollout-of-vectoring-to-fix-fttc-fibre-broadband-speeds.html