December 11, 2013 – The International Telecommunication Union (ITU of the United Nations) membership has reached first-stage approval of ‘G.fast’: a new broadband standard promising access speeds of up to 1 Gbit/s over existing telephone wires.

Within a 250-m range of a distribution point, G.fast’s speeds give service providers a tool to supplement and further monetize fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) strategies with the customer self-installation benefits of ADSL2, says ITU.

Within the fiber-to-the-distribution point (FTTdp) architecture, G.fast “combines the best aspects of fiber and ADSL2”. Consumers will have an over-the-counter solution, equipped to support bandwidth-intensive services, such as Ultra-HD streaming and IPTV, advanced cloud-based storage, and communication via HD video.

The physical-layer protocol aspects of G.fast defined by Recommendation ITU-T G.9701 “Fast Access to Subscriber Terminals – Physical layer specification” have reached the point of stability required to initiate the standard’s approval procedure, says ITU. Chip manufacturers will now scale-up G.fast chip design and testing efforts, feeding results of this work into ITU-T Study Group 15 in the interests of finalizing G.fast as early as April 2014.

ITU-T G.9701 is on track to achieving final approval in conjunction with ITU-T G.9700, which specifies methods to ensure that G.fast equipment will not interfere with broadcast services such as FM radio. ITU adds the standard will complement FTTH strategies, serving the many scenarios where G.fast is more cost-efficient than FTTH.