I recently found a reference to a workshop run by BT Research 6 months ago, at Adastral Park. It looks to have been targeted at academic researchers in the communications field, and includes a fair amount of SDN, NFV, G.Fast, Optical and 5G content.
Presentations are available on the "programme" page here:
http://www.cn2winterschool.group.shef.ac.uk/The G.Fast presentation offers some insight into where BT are aiming next:
- "We believe there’s another hybrid fibre/copper technology beyond G.fast"
- "A key aspect of our research is understanding the potential for beam steering to extract additional capacity from the copper cable"
- "We are now using MIMO techniques from radio to boost performance in copper cables"
- "There is a lots [SIC] more capacity to come from copper"
Beamforming? In cables?
One figure suggests that the idea is an extension of vectoring. Instead of "just" using the transmitters on other pairs to transmit "anti-noise" signals, the idea looks like using those transmitters to bolster the strength of your own signal, and get more bits out of it.
There's plenty more than just G.Fast, though...