Chunghwa Telecom has commenced the first commercial deployment of G.fast high-speed broadband access in Taiwan.
Alcatel-Lucent is collaborating with Chunghwa on the rollout, which seeks to connect tens of thousands of homes within two years.
Chunghwa Telecom said it plans to make G.fast services available to homes, buildings and skyscrapers by the fourth quarter of this year.
G.fast is designed to use a building's existing copper wiring for last-mile connectivity to fiber to the premise networks. In contrast to existing copper last mile connection technologies, G.fast promises near-gigabit access speeds.
Chunghwa Telecom is currently deploying Alcatel-Lucent's GPON technology as well as its G.fast equipment. The operator is responding to growing demand for fiber-speed access technology in light of growing adoption of services including 4K and HD video streaming.
“We have made great strides in proactively improving our broadband network service in recent years, and we are pleased to become the first G.fast commercial broadband service provider in the world,” Chunghwa Telecom president Mu-Piao Shih commented.
“With Alcatel-Lucent’s G.fast technology we will be well equipped to launch an ultra high-speed network service toward the end of this year and offer our customers the highest broadband service experience, thereby solidifying our leadership in the fiber optics broadband service market ranging from 100Mbps to 1Gbps.”