Evaluation of the hybrid FTTx/VDSL2-Vectoring approach in an access network

Fibre to the Home (FTTH) is currently the best solution to meet the requirements of the Digital Europe Agenda within the Europe 2020 strategy, concerning with the increase of the high speed access usage among the European citizens. Nevertheless, the roll-out of FTTH has high costs for the deployment of the optical fibres and the equipment that limit the investments from the operators. Therefore, the recent hybrid technologies that exploit the current copper-based access for the secondary network, with loop length of 300 m, combined to the Fibre to the Cabinet (FTTC) approach for the primary network, represents a valid alternative from the technical and economical points of view, meeting the requirement of high bandwidth availability for the user. An example of such technologies is the Vectoring technique applied to the VDSL2 access, that allows for connection speeds up to 100 Mbps on loop length of 300 m, whose actual performance depends on the conditions of the cables and the individual pairs. This work will show the results of the characterization of the FEXT (Far End Cross Talk) penalties in FTTC and FTTB access networks achieved by means of a physical cable simulator. In particular, the impact of the use of the Vectoring technique applied to VDSL2 technology in a multi operator scenario will be assessed.