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Ovum predicts 11% of broadband services in Western Europe could be delivered via the copper-upgrade technology within five years.
Global G.fast connections will reach 29 million by 2021, representing 3% of the world’s fixed broadband market, predicted Ovum on Monday.
In a report commissioned by U.K. incumbent BT and Australia’s state-owned broadband wholesaler NBN – two telcos both keen on G.fast – the analyst firm forecast that approximately 11% of broadband services in Western Europe may be delivered by G.fast within five years. Not bad for a technology that is not expected to enter commercial service until 2017.
"This report shows the potential that G.fast has for delivering ultrafast broadband services in the global market," said NBN’s chief technology officer Dennis Steiger, in a statement.
NBN recently shared plans to roll out fibre-to-the-curb to 700,000 premises, making G.fast – which can support speeds of hundreds of megabits per second albeit over very short copper cables – a suitable technology to use for the final drop.
NBN first trialled G.fast in 2015, and plans to commercially deploy it next year.
"It is very challenging to deliver fibre into every home. Having the option to use G.fast in a fibre-to-the-building or fibre-to-the-curb setting is a great option for any operator," Steiger said.
Indeed, BT is another big fan of G.fast.
The telco plans to use a mix of G.fast and fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) to deliver ultrafast broadband to 12 million premises by the end of 2020.
"The great thing about G.fast is that it allows us to deliver affordable ultrafast speeds to customers quickly and at scale," said Clive Selley, CEO of BT’s infrastructure arm Openreach. "We have pioneered G.fast in our labs, driven the global standards, and have been working closely with our communications provider customers on the trials, so we’re very excited that it’s time to start rolling this technology out nationwide."
Other big European incumbents, including Deutsche Telekom, Telekom Austria, Swisscom, and Proximus are also interested in rolling out G.fast.
"G.fast is a progressive and logical step for any network operator looking to deliver ultrafast speeds through incremental enhancements to existing infrastructure," said Matthew Howett, practice leader, regulation and policy, at Ovum.
"It allows them to radically improve the available speeds for large numbers of subscribers in a much shorter timeframe than other fibre based solutions," he said.
