Our friends over at it iTnews have an interesting story up today for those dreaming of gargantuan data speeds to your home.
It seems 500Mbps over copper phone lines is now a reality (at least in the lab), thanks to the clever minds over at Ericsson, who demonstrated copper's untapped power by bonding six different lines together in a technology known as 'channel bonding'. The move is an important milestone in VDSL2 technology.
The process is a little tricky though. Using crosstalk cancellation processes (typical ADSL lines have the potential to interfere with each other - called crosstalk), in conjunction with vectorised VDSL transmission technology, Ericsson have managed to prove that at least in theory - we could all one day be downloading Blu-Ray movies in under a minute.
However, it's still a long way off being ready for market. To be useful to end users, one would need to live fairly close to the exchange, as the speed tests were shown to plummet at distances greater than 1km. After that distance is reached, people would be better off using regular ADSL2+ services.
Last year we reported that Australian company Eftel were interested in launching VDSL2 type speeds, but as of now - we're still waiting for it to happen.
Eftel's website is reporting that they're in the process of rolling out the speedy VDSL service at up to 100mbps, but only time will tell when Aussies will finally get to break the shackles of ADSL2+ and see the VDSL2 promise take hold.