Two service providers, Telefonica and Bezeq, have joined several vendors as well as academic institutions to form the Dynamic Spectrum Management (DSM) Consortium. The consortium is tasked with developing DSM technology to "increase current subscriber broadband rates beyond DSL technology".
The technology promises "fibre-optic rates" over twisted pair, extending the data rates achieved by ADSL2+ and VDSL2 for a given length of twisted pair cabling. VDSL2 achieves 100 Mbit/s at 500m, and 50 Mbit/s over 1km.
Quite what is meant by "fibre rates" using DSM is not stated but at best it will be a doubling of the data rate/distance performance current DSL technology achieves.
Using DSM to extend the data rates over copper is clearly an attractive option for carriers, especially European incumbents who favour fibre-to-the-node/VDSL2 access schemes rather than fibre-to-the-home. Couple that with improvements in coding algorithms such as a 3.5Mbit/s HDTV channel, and copper-based broadband could live years longer than expected.
So just what is the maximum data rate possible over copper? Try 10Gbit/s over 100m. That is what the 10GBase-T standard, approved in June, offers.
Now no one is suggesting 10GBase-T be used for broadband. For a start, 10GBase-T uses special four twisted pairs cabling and is designed for data centres not access networks. And if you were going to the expense of laying new cabling as close as 100m to the home, it would be fibre not copper. But it shows what is possible over copper when advanced signal processing techniques are used.
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