Pushing the limits of copper

Paving the road to FTTH

Jochen Maes, Mamoun Guenach, Koen Hooghe, and Michael Timmers
Bell Labs
Alcatel-Lucent
Antwerp, Belgium
{jochen.maes,guenach}@ieee.org, {koen.hooghe,michael.timmers}@alcatel-lucent.com


AbstractThe ever growing demand for higher data rate is
pushing existing electrical broadband communication systems,
using coax or twisted pair cabling, to the limit. While optical
access systems inherently have a much higher transmission
capacity, upgrading the access network entirely to fiber remains
a costly and time-consuming effort. Therefore, many operators
deploy fiber gradually closer to the end user, while bridging the
remaining distance through copper technologies such as VDSL2.
In the next step of this evolutionary path, fiber is brought to
distribution points that are in the range of no more than 200 m
from the end user, with a copper access technology called G.fast
delivering data rates of 500 Mb/s to 1 Gb/s over the remaining
copper stretch. In this paper, we give an overview of the G.fast
technology that is currently being standardized in ITU. We show
the feasibility of its main technical requirements, namely i)
powering of the access equipment through the customer premises
modem, ii) high transmission efficiency for orthogonal frequency
division multiplexing over short copper loops and iii) offering
high net data rates to end users.
Keywords- Subscriber loops; DSL; Power transmission; OFDM
modulation; access protocols
I. INTRODUCTION
Operators that use the copper telephony network for
offering broadband services are incented to increase the
delivered data rates due to fierce competition with cable
operators and due to government broadband plans. By
gradually deploying fiber deeper into their network, the access
nodes (ANs) are brought closer to the end-users, hence
shortening the copper loop to lengths typically below one km
and increasing their capacity. Provisioning vectored Very high
speed Digital Subscriber Line (VDSL2) technology on these
shortened loops, allows to realistically achieve aggregate data
rates of 50 (on relatively longer loops) to 200 Mb/s (on the
shorter loops) [1]-[2]. In comparison, other access technologies
like the latest coaxial transmission technology, Data Over
Cable Service Interface Specification (DOCSIS) can achieve
data rates in excess of 200 Mb/s.
While fiber is clearly an optimal solution in terms of
throughput, its deployment is slow, due to the high capital
investment and the massive amount of construction work
involved. Operators are therefore seeking short-to-medium
term solutions to enable fiber-like speeds on the copper
network and allow them to spread fiber investments over a
longer time period [3]. Recently, the International
Telecommunications Union (ITU) has created a new study item
called G.fast (Fast Access to Subscriber Terminals) with the
goal to define a standard that addresses the operators needs by
the end of 2012. While stakeholders are converging on a
number of system characteristics and high level requirements,
technology options for the physical layer scheme are still open.
Since G.fast is a project in process, requirements may be
altered, removed, added or become optional in the future, and
may become substantially different from what is addressed in
this paper. Performance analysis (see further in this paper)
shows that, when using orthogonal frequency division
multiplexing (OFDM), aggregate data rates of 200 Mb/s to
1 Gb/s are within reach on copper loops of 30 to 200 m. From
deployment point of view, the active equipment will be located
in a node at one of the distribution points nearest to the end-
users, which can be a pole, an underground utility vault
(manhole), a small cabinet or inside a building. Each of these
nodes will be serving a limited number of end-customers, about
10 or 20. Hence, these nodes will need to be abundantly
present to cover the entire access network. For this reason, and
due to space limitations at the last distribution point, the
targeted system architecture is distributed, with a central access
node (CO central office) serving multiple remote equipment
(RE) for line termination as indicated in the example in Fig. 1.
Further, the REs are reverse powered from the customer
premises equipment in order to avoid the need for dedicated
This work is supported by IWT through project PHANTER.
CO
Passive
splitter
RE CPE
G.fast
transceiver
Power
extraction
Power
insertion
G.fast
transceiver
Power
source
RE power
supply unit
60 Vdc
RE CPE
CO
Passive
splitter
RE CPE
G.fast
transceiver
Power
extraction
Power
insertion
G.fast
transceiver
Power
source
RE power
supply unit
60 Vdc
RE CPE

Figure 1. In the distributed architecture an access node at the central office
serves multiple remote equipments (REs). The inset shows the reverse
powering of the REs by the customer premises equipment.
IEEE ICC 2012 - Selected Areas in Communications Symposium
978-1-4577-2053-6/12/$31.00 2012 IEEE 3149
mains power at every remote location (Fig. 1, inset).
On the system level, one novel aspect of G.fast is the desire
to power the RE by the CPE over the copper line, called
reverse power feeding. In Section II we evaluate the feasibility
of reverse power feeding. On the physical layer level, one
novel aspect of G.fast is the exploitation of higher frequencies.
In Section III the feasibility of exploiting higher frequencies
and the implications on OFDM modulation parameters are
discussed. Finally, in Section IV we provide a performance
evaluation based on realistic assumptions and the results from
Section III.
II. POWER TRANSFER CAPABILITIES
Reverse power feeding of the access equipment is a new
requirement not present in previous DSL technologies. The
power is transferred from the CPE to the RE in dc while the
broadband signal is present (Fig. 1). The mechanism proposed
for power transfer is a 60 V Remote Feeding
Telecommunication circuit (RFT-V [4]) with a maximum
current of 0.3 A [5]. This allows the source to provide up to
18 W. The 60 V source is the maximum allowed in safety
extra-low voltage (SELV) systems, and avoids the need for
additional safety precautions. The low voltage is also desired
to avoid flash-over in older paper insulated wire types that
have low dielectric strength. The power is transferred in dc
over the two wires of the twisted pair by applying the voltage
only on one wire, while grounding the other wire. The voltage
is kept negative to avoid electrolysis at places where the
insulation is weak or damaged.
Due to the resistance of the loop, the voltage seen by the
load (the RE) and hence the available power at the load, is
lower than provided by the source. We evaluate the load
power for various typical and worst case loop conditions. At
temperature T = T
0
+ AT and wire diameter d, the resistance in
Ohms of a twisted pair is:

2
)
2
(
) 1 (
2
d
T
L R
line
t
o A +
= . (1)

Here, = 1.68 10
-8
m is the resistivity of copper at
T
0
= 20C and o = 0.0039 K
-1
is the temperature coefficient.
The factor 2L comes from the fact that for a twisted pair of
length L the length of wire in the electrical chain is 2L. The
wire gauge typically ranges from 0.4 to 0.9 mm. We consider a
typical condition to be 0.5 mm copper wiring at a temperature
of 20C. The largest transfer of power into the load with
resistance R
load
occurs when P
load
= I
2
R
load
is maximized, where
I is the current. For a given line resistance R
line
and given
source voltage V
source
, the power delivered into the load is:

load
load line
source
load
R
R R
V
P
2
|
|
.
|

\
|
+
= . (2)

The available power at the load varies significantly
with loop and ambient conditions (Fig. 2). While a budget in
excess of 10 W is available for loops thicker than 0.5 mm and
shorter than 400 m, the power budget drops to 7.2 W per line
for a 400 m by 0.4 mm copper loop at elevated ambient
temperature. A G.fast RE must therefore be designed to
operate below this per-line budget for any number of active
lines. Hence, it should consume less than this budget, when
only a single line is active, which will strongly impact the
hardware architecture of the REs. To achieve this, the power
consumed by common functionalities such as the optical
uplink to the access node, must be sufficiently low and may
need to scale with the number of active lines. This is feasible
by moving the interworking function to the AN, or making it
scalable and integrate it in the digital signal processor (DSP).
The bottom curve in Fig. 2 shows the budget available on
aluminum twisted wiring, which has been deployed by some
operators during eras where copper prices were high.
In general, multiple copper lines will simultaneously
power the RE. On the one hand, the power transfer needs to be
efficient as to minimize Ohmic losses. On the other hand,
fairness amongst end-users is desired to ensure that the power
provided by any given end-user is proportional to the power
needed for that lines functionalities in the RE. Three
strategies for balancing the power delivered by K end-users
are assessed. In the first, each end user provides the same
power at the CPE source (Equal P
source
). This implies that the
load power contribution from longer lines will be less than
that of shorter lines due to the higher resistance of the longer
lines. In the second alternative, each end user provides the
same power at the RE load (Equal P
load
). While each end
user provides a fraction 1/K of the total required power at the
load, the longer lines will have a significantly higher P
source

than the shorter lines. In the third strategy (Efficient), the
power is drawn from the multiple lines in the most efficient
way, by adapting the source power to the loop conditions.
While short lines will provide relatively more power than long
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
18
20
Loop length (m)
L
o
a
d

p
o
w
e
r

(
W
)


0.9 mm Cu at 20C
0.5 mm Cu at 20C
0.4 mm Cu at 20C
0.4 mm Cu at 65C
0.4 mm Al at 65C

Figure 2. The G.fast RE needs to work on a budget of 7.2 W for a realistic
scenario.
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lines, the overall efficiency is optimum. The power transfer
efficiency is defined as

_
_
=
=
K
k
source
K
k
load
k P
k P
1
1
) (
) (
(3)

Here, the indek k indicates the source or load power
for user k = 1 to K. The three strategies are compared in Fig. 3,
assuming the RE requires Kx7.2 W and uniformly distributed
loop lengths between 40 and 400 m. The number of lines used
for simulation is K = 10, each requiring 7.2 W. Depending on
loop conditions, the power transfer efficiency of the Efficient
strategy is 1 to 15 percentage point (pp) higher than that of the
Equal P
source
strategy. The worst strategy is Equal P
load
as it
forces all lines to deliver the same amount of power at the load
irrespective of their loop lengths which is clearly very
inefficient for longer lines. Moreover, this strategy fails for the
worst case loop condition because the longest loops are not
able to provide the required P
source
.
III. TRANSMISSION EFFICIENCY
One of the most specific data rate requirement for
G.fast expressed up to now can be formulated as a net
aggregate service rate of 500 Mb/s that must be sustained
using frequencies above 17.7 MHz over 50 m of 0.5 mm cable
[6]. The aggregate traffic capacity limit should not be less than
1 Gb/s. Achieving these rates on a copper loop requires
scaling up modulation and coding as compared to current DSL
technology. Taking into account limitations on aggregate
transmit power, spectral compatibility and equipment noise
floor, the targeted capacity can only be achieved by utilizing a
wider spectrum that spans significantly above 30 MHz.
OFDM is selected for the next generation physical layer due to
its multiple benefits as compared to other modulation
schemes. The digital complexity increase associated with
utilizing a wider bandwidth has shown to be feasible based on
Moores law scaling [7]. As we show here, the transmission
efficiency of OFDM remains high when the cyclic extension
(CE) is adapted to the loop conditions. The CE reduces inter-
symbol interference (ISI) of consecutive OFDM symbols,
allows digital duplexing of down and upstream symbols and
reduces out of band energy through the addition of a
windowing operation within the CE. One of the factors that
define the required CE length is the power delay profile (PDP)
of the signal, which is related to the channel impulse response
h(t) by:

)
=
dx x h
t h
t PDP
2
2
) (
) (
) ( . (4)

The PDP contains information on the signal delay.
The arrival delay is defined as the duration between the
transmission of a signal and the arrival of the first significant
component of the signal at the receiver. It is the earliest time
instance at which the PDP exceeds a pre-defined threshold,
often taken around -40 dB. The total delay is the last time
instance at which the PDP remains above that same threshold.
The excess delay is a measure of the duration of the impulse
and is the difference between the total delay and the arrival
delay. These three quantities are shown in Fig. 4 for a 24 awg
loop. In VDSL2, frequency division duplexing (FDD) is used,
implying that the CE must be at least in the order of the total
delay to ensure digital duplexing. A time division duplexing
(TDD) approach is selected in which multiple consecutive
symbols are transmitted in the same communication direction
(either upstream or downstream). TDD alleviates the need for
digital duplexing. In that case, the CE must be at least in the
order of the excess delay to avoid ISI. By moving from FDD
to TDD, the CE overhead attributed to symbol alignment can
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
2.5
3
3.5
4
T
i
m
e

(

s
)
Loop length (m)


Arrival delay
Excess delay
Total delay

Figure 4. The cyclic extension length must be optimized to mitigate the effects
of signal dispersion.
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
0.9 mm Cu at 20C
0.5 mm Cu at 20C
0.4 mm Cu at 20C
0.4 mm Cu at 65C
0.4 mm Al at 65C
Power transfer efficiency

Equal P
source
Equal P
load
Efficient

Figure 3. Comparison of the power transfer efficiency under three strategies.
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thus be halved. The actual CE overhead depends on the
symbol duration, and thus on the carrier spacing. For a symbol
rate of 16 and 32 kHz, a 2 s CE corresponds to an overhead
of 3.2 % and 6.4% respectively. Note that a time domain gap
to compensate the delay spread on the subscriber loops must
be introduced when the transmission direction changes in a
TDD based scheme. This serves to avoid impact from echo
and near end crosstalk. Frequent changes in transmission
direction are needed to ensure low latency, which could limit
the benefits of TDD.
Spectral confinement is required near band edges and
near notches that may be introduced to avoid the impact of
ingress from or egress to other communication systems
operating at the notched frequencies, e.g. the FM band.
Spectral confinement is ensured by applying a windowing
function to the CE prior to transmission. Typically this
function is a raised-cosine window in the time domain. The
spectral confinement increases with the duration of the
window in the time domain. As the symbol duration decreases
with carrier frequency, the windowing overhead will increase
with increasing carrier frequency for a given spectral roll-off.
Due to the finite window length, the spectral confinement is
limited and a number of carriers may need to be vacated near
band edges or notches. The number of vacated carriers and
hence the bandwidth loss depends on the windowing
overhead. The windowing efficiency, including CE overhead
and bandwidth loss due to vacated carriers, is given in Fig. 5
as a function of the window overhead | for different carrier
spacings and utilized bandwidths. We assume 10 notches are
present over the entire frequency band. Depending on the
windowing overhead, a number of carriers needs to be vacated
near each notch edge to restrict the power spectral density
(PSD) within the notch due to spectral leakage. The PSD
restrictions within the notches are taken from [8]. The
efficiency includes the windowing overhead as well as the
capacity loss due to vacated carriers. A maximum is observed
around 0.5 to 1.5% of windowing overhead. For larger |, the
inefficiency is dominated by the window length, while for
smaller beta, the inefficiency is dominated by an increased
number of vacated carriers. The efficiency at the optimal CE
depends on the modulation parameters and ranges from 96 to
99%. Combined with the CE overhead required to avoid ISI,
OFDM provides a transmission efficiency of 90 to 95% for the
evaluated modulation parameters.
IV. PERFORMANCE EVALUATION
On loops up to 400 m and with a gauge of 0.5 mm
the attainable data rate is evaluated under different bandwidth
utilization. The lowest starting frequency considered is
138 kHz, corresponding to the start of the downstream band of
ADSL. An alternative starting frequency is 17.7 MHz, to
allow co-existence of G.fast with deployed VDSL2 17 MHz
band plans. Two upper frequencies are considered: 100 MHz
and 141 MHz. The 100 MHz upper frequency f
max
is currently
the highest frequency used by standardized in-home powerline
or phone line communication systems [9]. The f
max
= 141 MHz
upper limit is chosen to be a power of two multiplied with the
carrier frequency used in ADSL. In the numerical evaluation,
the carrier spacing f
c
depends on f
max
(see Table I). However,
the obtained results still hold if a common carrier spacing is
selected. To keep the aggregate transmit power low, the PSD
is kept below -76 dBm/Hz. The PSD is notched on frequencies
in use by FM radio (87.5 to 108 MHz), on AM bands
identified in [10], on emergency channels and on AM bands
proposed for fixed notching in [11]. These notches are applied
to obtain realistic performance evaluation: without notch, the
ingress into the copper line may prevent full exploitation of
these frequencies. A gap to capacity of I = 10.75 dB is typical
for todays DSL deployments and includes a 6 dB noise
margin. The efficiency of q = 78.5% includes the transmission
efficiency defined in Section III and coding overhead. The
maximum bits loaded per QAM constellation is conservatively
taken at b
max
= 12 bits due to possible limitations of high
bandwidth ADC components. The different settings in the
numerical evaluation are summarized in Table I.
TABLE I. SIMULATION PARAMETERS
Parameter Value
Binder type 0.5 mm poly-ethylene insulated (PE05)
PSD limit -76 dBm/Hz
Notches AM, FM and Emergency channels
Carrier Spacing
f
c

48.828 kHz if f
max
= 100 MHz
17.250 kHz if f
max
= 141 MHz
Noise floor
0
2
-135 dBm/Hz
X
dB
-6dB (below 99% worst case model)
I 10.75 dB
q 78.5%
b
max
12 bits

0 0.01 0.02 0.03 0.04 0.05 0.06 0.07 0.08 0.09 0.1
0.9
0.91
0.92
0.93
0.94
0.95
0.96
0.97
0.98
0.99
1
beta
E
f
f
i
c
i
e
n
c
y

17 kHz, 140 MHz
17 kHz, 70 MHz
34 kHz, 140 MHz
34 kHz, 70 MHz

Figure 5. Due to the trade-off between efficient notching and the windowing
overhead, an optimal exists that maximizes the efficiency for a specific
scenario.
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The net data rate R, aggregated over upstream and
downstream, is derived as

) ),
)) ( (
) ( ) (
1 ( min(log
max
1
0
2
0
2
2
b
n I
n PSD n H
f R
N
n
c _

=
+ I
+ =
o
q
.

Here, |H(n)|
2
is the direct channel response evaluated
at frequency nf
c
. The direct channel is provided by the
analytical PE05 transmission line model of [12] describing the
primary parameters of a type of 0.5 mm gauge twisted pairs
generally used in performance testing. The crosstalk
interference I(n) is derived from the 99% worst case model,
reduced by X
dB
= -6 dB [13]. This offset allows evaluating the
main rate requirement in [6], which stipulates that 500 Mb/s
should be achieved on a 50 m loop using frequencies above
17.7 MHz and with crosstalk 6 dB below the 99% worst case
crosstalk level. The 99% worst case crosstalk level is derived
from the direct channel response |H(n)|
2
using the
phenomenological model described in [13]. The resulting net
aggregate data rate as a function of loop length is provided in
Fig. 6. It shows the feasibility of obtaining up to 1 Gb/s
aggregate over a single short loop on the legacy copper
network when the full bandwidth down to 138 kHz is
exploited. When G.fast is deployed in co-existence with
VDSL2 17 MHz lines, the net data rate reduces significantly,
but rates well above 500 Mb/s remain obtainable. The curves
indicated by no XT correspond to scenarios where no
crosstalk is present, or when the crosstalk is removed through
vectoring [1], [2]. When crosstalk is present, even if it is 6 dB
below the 99% worst case crosstalk level, the net data rate
reduces significantly in the loop length region of interest (0 to
200 m). The impact of crosstalk is largest for loops between
50 and 100 m, where the rate reduction amounts up to 51%.
With a limit of VDSL2 30a at 305 Mb/s under similar
simulation conditions, but with a PSD of -60 dBm/Hz and
b
max
= 15 bits, the curve labeled Vectored VDSL2 in Fig. 6
shows that a G.fast technology brings data rates well above
VDSL2 capabilities within reach. At loop lengths typical for
Fiber-To-The-Node deployments (400 to 1000 m), vectored
VDSL2 remains the preferred technology.
V. CONCLUSIONS
G.fast is an access technology under definition in
ITU-T. It aims at providing multiple hundreds of Mb/s to end-
users over the legacy copper access network. In this paper we
show, through numerical evaluation, the feasibility of reverse
powering of access equipment, with an available per-line
power budget of 7.2 Watt. We illustrate that a transmission
efficiency of cyclically extended OFDM of 90 to 95% is
achievable depending on modulation parameters. We show a
realistic data rate performance evaluation under scenarios with
different use of bandwidth and different crosstalk conditions.
Gigabit data rates are obtainable, but somewhat more modest
rates can be achieved in case spectral compatibility with
legacy systems must be ensured or in case crosstalk is not
mitigated.
REFERENCES
[1] V. Oksman et al., The ITU-Ts new G.vector standard proliferates
100 Mb/s DSL, IEEE Communications Magazine, October 2010.
[2] M. Guenach, J. Maes, M. Timmers, O. Lamparter, J.-C. Bischoff, M.
Peeters, Vectoring in DSL systems: Practices and Challenges, proc.
IEEE Globecom 2011, Houston, TX, dec. 2011.
[3] BBF OD-263, FAST Digital Access over Short Subscriber Loops.
[4] ITU-T Recommendation K.50, Safe limits of operating voltages and
currents for telecommunication systems powered over the network;
ITU-T Recommendation K.51, Safety criteria for telecommunication
equipment.
[5] ETSI Technical Report 102 629, Access, Terminals, Transmission and
Multiplexing; Reverse Power Feed for Remote Nodes.
[6] British Telecom, G.fast: BT requirements for G.fast, ITU-T SG15/Q4
contribution 11BM-088, August, 2011.
[7] M. Timmers, K. Hooghe, M. Guenach, and J. Maes, Digital Complexity
in DSL: an Extrapolated Historical Overview, proceedings of Access
2011, Luxembourg, June, 2011.
[8] ITU-T Recommendation G.993.2, Very high speed digital subscriber
lines 2 (VDSL2), International Telecommunication Union
recommendation, 2006.
[9] V. Oksman, S. Galli, G.hn: The New ITU-T Home Networking
Standard, IEEE Communications Magazine, pp. 138-145, October
2009.
[10] British Telecom, G.hn: Extension of dynamic notching above 30 MHz,
ITU-T SG14/Q4 contribution 10GS5-20, Geneva, Switzerland, October,
2010.
[11] ITU-T Recommendation G.9960, Corrigendum 2, Unified high-speed
wire-line based home networking trransceivers system architecture and
PHY layer specification, International Telecommunication Union
recommendation, 2011.
[12] ETSI Technical Specification 101 388 v1.4.1, August, 2007.
[13] J. Maes, M. Guenach, M. Peeters, Statistical Channel Model for Gain
Quantification of DSL Crosstalk Mitigation Techniques, in Proc. IEEE
Intl Conf. Commun. (ICC09), Dresden, 2009.


0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400
0
200
400
600
800
1000
1200
Loop length (m)
A
g
g
r
e
g
a
t
e

d
a
t
a

r
a
t
e

(
M
b
/
s
)


0 to 100 MHz no XT
0 to 141 MHz no XT
18 to 100 MHz no XT
18 to 141 MHz no XT
18 to 100 MHz with XT
18 to 141 MHz with XT
Vectored VDSL2

Figure 6. Gigabit speeds are within reach. Muliple hundred Mb/s can still be
obtained with increased starting frequency and with crosstalk interference.
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