Australia's nbn announced that it has achieved gigabit transmission speeds during a fixed wireless technology demonstration conducted in Ballarat, Victoria.
For the trial, nbn used 2.3 and 3.4 GHz spectrum as part of its ongoing effort to employ the appropriate advanced technology to meet both current and future bandwidth demands within its multi-technology mix (MTM) strategy. The latest demonstration achieved 1.1 Gbit/s downstream and 165 Mbit/s upstream speeds utilising carrier aggregation technology to combine seven carriers in the 3.4 GHz band and four carriers in the 2.3 GHz band.
As part of the demonstration nbn also delivered trial peak downstream/upstream speeds of 400/55 Mbit/s, 250/50 Mbit/s and 100/40 Mbit/s using a range of carriers in the 2.3 and 3.4GHz spectrum bands.
nbn noted that the 1.1 Gbit/s transmission speed was achieved by bonding together three next generation wireless network termination devices (WNTDs) - the antennae located on the roof of a nearby school - while the lower speeds were enabled via a single WNTD. The trial involved the use of a spare operating sector on an established nbn fixed wireless tower and the installation of additional radio equipment.
The trial was conducted with nbn's fixed wireless technology partner Ericsson, NetComm Wireless and Qualcomm, with the speed tests carried out utilising technology from Mill Software.
nbn has previously committed to launching a new wholesale nbn100 fixed wireless product targeting the regional business segment in 2018, and the latest high speed fixed wireless technology demonstration was designed to illustrate its ability to launch faster services over the nbn fixed wireless network. nbn anticipates that around 600,000 premises in regional Australia will be served by the fixed wireless network.
Earlier in April, nbn announced it had partnered with Nokia to trial NG-PON2 technology that could potentially enable symmetrical speeds of up to 10 Gbit/s for FTTP services. nbn noted that NG-PON2 could also enhance services for FTTB and fibre-to-the-kerb networks combined with technology such as G.fast and XG.FAST, as well as providing extra capacity over fibre supporting its HFC and fixed wireless networks.During trials in Melbourne, NG-PON2 delivered bandwidth of up to 102 Gbit/s in the lab, based on 40 Gbit/s symmetrical speed using TWDM-PON technology, 10 Gbit/s symmetrical on XGS-PON and a further 2.5 Gbit/s with current GPON technology.
