SK Broadband rolls out first true gigabit Gfast 212MHz service in Seoul and Seongnam, South Korea
RAMAT GAN, Israel, Nov. 12, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Sckipio Technologies and internet service provider SK Broadband announced the first commercial deployment of Gfast 212MHz gigabit internet in Asia. SK Broadband deployed the new Gfast gigabit service in Seoul and Seongnam, South Korea.
“SK Broadband is determined to provide gigabit internet to all, but not all South Korean apartments can be easily wired with fiber all the way to the apartment,” said Choong-Bok Lee, the manager in charge of access networks at SK Broadband. “That’s why we chose Sckipio’s Gfast. It’s the best way to extend gigabit fiber performance to these apartments over existing twisted pair telephone wires.”
SK Broadband has a long history of being first to market with the most advanced access technologies at that time, such as VDSL, G-PON, NG-PON2, XGS-PON and now Gfast. SK Broadband began commercial service to residential customers with the world’s first NG-PON2 supporting up to 52.25Gbps, as well as XGS-PON. SK Broadband achieved remarkable, world-leading broadband speeds by using a practical approach of combining fiber and copper. Most South Korean apartment buildings already have fiber to the basement. Yet, often these are older buildings, making it impractical to bring fiber all the way to the apartment. That is the reason why only 34 percent of South Korean apartments have fiber all the way to the apartment while the remaining 66 percent are needing another approach.
That is where Gfast comes in. Gfast is a standards-based access network technology that adds true gigabit connections to each unit in the building by using the existing twisted pair telephone wiring. By applying vectoring technology for crosstalk cancellation between lines, Gfast ensures fiber-like performance, but at a fraction of the time, hassle and cost. This true vectoring technology provides concurrent gigabit service to all subscribers connected within the same wire binder at the same time, which vectorless technology cannot achieve. Gfast can also be extended to up to 96 gigabit ports by stacking distribution point units (DPUs) together and vectoring across the DPUs. This provides carriers, such as SK Broadband, with significant CAPEX savings.
According to the Korean Statistical Information Service, over half of the residents of Seoul and the surrounding Gyeonggi Province live in high-rise buildings with a high density of apartments. To reach all these residents with gigabit speeds required new Gfast solutions that can support both the latest 212MHz technology and that can implement vectoring (crosstalk cancellation technique) over a large count of lines simultaneously. South Korean network infrastructure equipment maker HFR worked with Sckipio to provide SK Broadband solutions that support up to 96 subscribers. HFR’s DPU serves 24 subscribers in a single DPU and can be connected to an additional three DPUs, forming a larger vectoring group of 96 ports to serve 96 subscribers sharing the same copper binder. Only Sckipio’s Gfast supports 96 concurrent gigabit subscribers.
“By partnering with SK Broadband and HFR, we are accelerating South Korea’s lead in broadband speeds,” said David Baum, Sckipio CEO. "This deployment demonstrates the clear use case for Gfast technology to deliver gigabit service to large apartment environments without needing to install fiber connections to each apartment.”
“Gigabit speeds have become the new marketing standard for operators around the world,” said Julie Kunstler, Principal Analyst at Ovum. “Given South Korea’s advanced access infrastructure and competition for broadband subscribers, it follows that SK Broadband is embracing Gfast.”
About Sckipio
Sckipio, the leader in Gfast, develops award-winning, standards-compliant Gfast modems used to enable ultra-broadband access and mobile backhaul. Sckipio partners with more than 30 companies globally on Gfast and is one of the leading contributors to the ITU-T standard. For more information about Sckipio, visit our website at http://www.sckipio.com. For more information, follow us on LinkedIn, SlideShare and Twitter @SckipioTech.
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