ISE Magazine, August 2018

AU G U S T 2 0 1 8 WWW ISEMAG COM 1 1 1 G FAST MDUs Challenge or Opportunity With more than 30 million apartment buildings in the US alone Multi Dwelling Units MDUs represent a huge slice of service providers potential revenue pie Ranging from single story buildings with 2 to 4 tenants to multicomplex multi story developments with hundreds of speed and capacity hungry residents the potential for increased return on investment is high But servicing these buildings does not come without challenges A large pool of potential customers also means fulfilling high volume demands with a high number of users all likely to have multiple devices they wish to connect to Then there is each buildings structure to consider and with no two MDUs likely to be the same each unit will need its own bespoke solution In addition to this they are often served by complex well established wiring systems which would be extremely challenging to remold Add to this many MDUs feature aging structures that were designed before fiber was even considered Given all of these realities service providers have quite a challenge on their hands all before they even ask for the owners permission to drill holes into their buildings to get the cabling inside There is however light at the end of the tunnel MDUs are usually geographically well placed They can be within a few hundred meters from a fiber drop that may reside inside the basement or outside façade of a building in a nearby manhole or in some cases in a street cabinet located on a nearby street corner making them perfect candidates for G fast Getting to a Gigabit With G fast First trialed back in 2014 as a new way to deliver speeds of up to 1 Gbit s over existing copper cables using the Fiber tothe distribution point FTTdp architecture G fast brought a new lease on life to established copper cables They put previously unattainable fiber like speeds in reach of end users unserved by Fiber to the Home FTTH deployments Since the initial trials the rise of G fast has been rapid with a growing number of global deployments Among those first to capitalize on the huge potential presented by G fast was Engacom which became the first service provider in Japan to launch its G fast service in 2016 Other service providers followed suit and in the case of BT its efforts to deploy G fast were particularly ambitious with a commitment to cover 10 million premises with the technology by 2020 With its potential confirmed we are now moving into the next phase of G fast delivery and with no need to install new wiring and the same self installation capabilities as DSL Now G fast is becoming the ultimate tool to bring Gigabit speeds into MDUs In fact the latest Broadbandtrends survey Global Service Provider Survey 2018 G fast Deployment Strategies Vendor Leadership stated that the overwhelming objective for deployment of G fast is the ability to offer advanced broadband services in MDUs with copper infrastructure Surveying 33 operators the survey also found that the top reason for deploying G fast was the need to be able to provide faster speeds above 250 Mbps to users Every respondent also stated that Fiber to the Building with a DPU in the basement was a top use case for G fast Both these insights point towards the importance of MDUs as key areas of focus for G fast to have the greatest levels of traction Also when we compare this with the broadband trends G fast survey from 2017 we can see more operators intend to deploy G fast going from 22 to 80 of respondents The top use case is now deployment in MDUs as clearly identified by 100 of respondents in 2018 vs 85 in 2017 Additionally in 2018 almost one third of respondents were already in a deployment phase vs 11 in 2017