VIENNA -- By year-end 2010, A1 Telekom Austria plans to provide high-speed broadband to 40% of all Austrian households and commercial businesses through its nationwide GigaNet – which uses FTTC (Fiber-to-the-curb) and FTTEx (Fiber-to-the-exchange, also known as VDSL@CO) to connect Telekom Austria’s central office equipment with the “last-mile” copper network.

Together with Alcatel-Lucent, A1 Telekom Austria today therefore demonstrated in front of investors the possibilities of technologies such as VDSL Vectoring and the so-called “Phantom Mode”.

Broadband penetration in Austria will be increased quicklyThe European Commission’s Digital Agenda envisions providing every European citizen with 30Mbps broadband by 2020. This will allow the simultaneous transmission of three high-definition TV channels, internet usage and voice telephony. To achieve this, an intelligent combination of several access technologies is needed.

“Complementing our fiber infrastructure and continuously increasing wireless capacities, we want to get the most out of our existing copper-based network,” said Dr. Hannes Ametsreiter, General Manager A1 Telekom Austria. “This is how we can provide our customers with the highest bandwidths in the shortest timeframe, especially in regions where fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) build-outs have not yet been planned.”

Vectoring prevents interference or “crosstalk” between copper lines. This requires enormous processor capacities in A1 Telekom Austria’s network. The result of Vectoring is a drastic increase in downstream capacities. Using VDSL Bonding, switching centres can supply constant speeds to larger areas. Going a step further, innovations such as DSL Phantom Mode use a virtual or “phantom” channel on top of two physical transmission lines to push the envelope on DSL capacity.In the course of the demo, using a combination of Bonding, Vectoring and Phantom Mode, downstream speeds up to 390 Mbps at 400 meters were shown.

Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE: ALU)