Fibre could take a decade to reach enterprises, warn experts

Next-generation fibre to the premises (FTTP) networks could take another 10 years to reach UK enterprise doorsteps, leaving a big window of opportunity for telecoms providers to roll out Ethernet services on their existing copper infrastructure.

George Lasry, general manager for telecoms equipment provider Actelis, believes that Ethernet-over-copper services will help carriers extend their metropolitan Ethernet offerings into offices that fibre may never reach, and at a fraction of the cost of fibre.

Maximum bandwidth is limited to 45Mbit/s, based on aggregating eight copper pairs, however, far less than the 100Mbit/s and 1Gbit/s offered by fibre-based options.
"Ultimately, the march to fibre is on but it will take time. Until then, rolling out [metropolitan Ethernet] on copper costs a tenth of what it would on fibre, and provisioning is 10 times faster as well," Lasry said.

Actelis unveiled its ML600 Ethernet Access Device (EAD) at Cebit earlier this month, designed for carriers who want to roll out metropolitan Ethernet services to customers within the local copper loop.

The company already supplies equipment to Kingston Communications and said it is in trials with BT, though BT has not yet detailed plans to roll out Ethernet services based on its extensive copper infrastructure.