'Wireless' UFB option could provide gigabit speeds without the cabling

Wednesday, 13 February 2019

A wireless connection from the home to the street for UFB could make installs easier and would do away with a need for dangling overhead phone lines.

Chorus is testing a wireless ultrafast broadband technology that could mean customers are able to get gigabit broadband without needing an unsightly phone cable dangling across their property.

The company is considering using technology from Nokia to provide a wireless UFB connection from the street to the home in areas where it is hard to connect homes using cables, for example in apartment buildings or where access is a problem.

Chorus has trialed UFB without the wires.

'The way we anticipate it being used is for those cases where it is proving too difficult to do wired fibre to the home,' spokesman Steve Pettigrew said.

But he agreed it could also appeal to home-owners living in areas with overhead lines who did not want a cable dangling across their property. 'We would need to think more on that after we have completed the trials.'

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Pettigrew said its trial showed a connection speed of about 1.6Gbps over 150 metres was possible, which is faster than the normal top-speed of close to 1Gbps offered by its wholesale residential connections.

However, the technology uses high-frequency radio spectrum in the 60GHz band, and for that to work there needs to be a clear line of sight between the access points that might be installed on power or phone poles and an antenna on the home, which would connect to the customer's router.

The cost to Chorus of using a wireless last link for UFB or laying a cable to a home could be broadly similar and it had not come across interference issues between multiple wireless connections to date, Pettigrew said.

Under its existing contract with the Crown, Chorus is obliged to provide physical fibre-optic connections to homes, so a wireless alternative is not an option that could currently be forced on consumers who did not prefer it.

Chorus chief customer officer Ed Hyde said the technology, called Nokia WiPON, could be 'an extremely useful tool in Chorus' toolbox', although the majority of UFB traditional installs were now being completed in a single visit.