I've lost track of where I read it, but I recently read that Openreach was considering, or is planning, to switch to the newer ITU-T G.9701 Amendment 3 (212MHz spectrum) G.Fast rather than the original 106MHz spectrum (which is what they've been testing in the trials).
Update 1 I may have been confused between Amendment 3 and Openreach deciding not to go for FTTdp (distribution point) so that the local loop would be no more than 200m. Instead, for obvious cost reasons (no need to run fibre to every DP) they're going with pods on existing cabinets meaning longer local loops (up to 400m) and what some industry wags are calling G.˝Fast.
Update 2A very useful site dedicated to
G.Fast news reports that trials of Amendment 3 (212MHz spectrum) are underway with Broadcom chipsets but volume delivery of chipsets (to manufacturers) is not expected before mid-to-end of 2018.
Is there a list of modems either currently available or planned that support G9701 or G9701 amendment 3?
I'm asking because I'm building a wireless point-to-point link to get decent service to our farm. Currently on the end of a 2-2.5km line which at best supports around 10Mbps VDSL at the 2km point, and only ADSL2 2.5Mbps at the 2.5km point.
There's a VDSL cabinet about 750m away across our fields, on the opposite side of a trunk road, serving a small rural estate (~50 households). I've been considering 3 options:
- Pay a household on the other side of the trunk road,very close to the cabinet, to host a BT line, uplinking from there via point-to-point 5.8GHz radio.
- Pay a household (only 3 of them) on our side of the trunk road likewise, but this depends on how long their cable run to the cabinet is
- If the underground ducting runs on our side of the trunk road alongside our fields, build a solar-powered uplink station as close to the cabinet as possible and have Openreach put their cable into a duct we can burrow under the hedgerow from a very small hut
The latter is the best option if ducting is on our side since we aren't reliant on the goodwill of another household.
Whichever option we go with I want to ensure that the modem I install will support the ITU-T G.9701 Amendment 3 212MHz spectrum so that as soon as G.Fast is enabled at the cabinet we can take advantage of it.
The idea is to then share out the 330Mbps link over further point-to-point radio links to the houses and buildings around the farm.