Genesis gives birth to DSLRings up to 400 Mbps technology
Monday 15 October 2012 11:07:46 by Andrew Ferguson

Genesis Technical Systems has found a novel way to potentially provide up to 400 Mbps to properties over the existing copper network, without the expense of deploying fibre.

The DSL Rings technology was demonstrated at NextGen12 and this week has moved on to the Broadband World Forum in Amsterdam.

With Openreach committed to its majority FTTC programme (~10% FTTP) and no sign of the local authorities going for anything massively alternative, DSL Rings looks unlikely to be deployed on a large scale in the UK, but it may find its way into the mix for some areas possibly. The market is most likely to be overseas in countries that have not already started deploying fibre.

400 Mbps over copper sounds very promising, but if you watch the YouTube presentation it becomes clear as to how this is achieved. Most VDSL2 deployments currently operate from the street cabinet, but Genesis is proposing moving the point at which VDSL2 operates to be the drop point (closest telegraph pole that serves 10 to 16 properties). At this short distance of 50m VDSL2 can perform in the 150 to 250 Mbps speed range, then by bonding a second pair you reach 400 Mbps, the clever part of the Genesis system appears to be to create a shared loop between the properties and thus aggregating the bandwidth, so the node on the pole can use a single bonded connection back to the exchange.

We are not sure about the concept and its useful deployment in the UK, some older properties with original drop wires only have a single pair, and the distance from the drop point to the exchange even if bonding is used will be a long way to get decent speeds without deploying fibre. The issue of power for a small device should not be a factor as other manufacturers have demonstrated small DSLAMs that can be powered by a couple of copper pairs.