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70-100 megabits 400-500 meters. Stefaan Vanhastel promises to deliver production quality vectored DSL to the first European customers in December, with North America soon to follow. He tells me that generally field results are 100 megabits about 400 meters and 70-90 megabits at 500 meters. That’s not quite double what most lines are getting without vectoring. Vectored noise cancellation is particularly effective at short distances and falls off rapidly after that, yielding more like a 30% improvement at 1,000 meters and even less at 1,500 meters. 

     Deutsche Telekom and British Telecom are deploying something like 10M lines of FTTN/DSL from neighborhood terminals that will bring many - perhaps half - of the homes involved to distances that can benefit from the vectoring. It’s natural for builds like that to use vectored gear for all new installations. Alcatel’s not revealing costs, but for new gear the difference should be well under $50/line, a dollar per subscriber month for much higher speeds. 

    Alcatel addresses the crucial problem of working well with existing deployments in several ways. For example, AT&T U-Verse has already deployed around 29M of the 31M lines Ralph de la Vega says are in the plan. While those lines could be connected to new vectored line cards, there's no indication AT&T or any other deployed networks will undergo a major system overhaul.  Even worse, “unvectored” lines in the same binder with “vectored” lines can cause serious interference and reduces the effectiveness of vectoring. How well the existing lines integrate with the newly vectored lines will be a key differentiator of the new systems. As results come from the field I'll be watching closely. 

     Vectoring minimizes cross talk, the most important source of noise on loops under 1,000 meters. A side effect is that other disturbers, such as impulse noise, now become more important  than they had been. Today, these generally minor noise sources are often drowned out by primary crosstalk. With that crosstalk defeated, they become more noticeable. Problems like this will continue to make some  lines do considerably worse than expected. 

     It's great to see real deployments are close after six years. 

Here's Alcatel's release:

Alcatel-Lucent accelerates the availability of superfast broadband

Commercial launch of VDSL2 Vectoring helps operators enhance their existing copper access networks – in combination with fiber – to support tomorrow’s broadband speeds today

Paris, September 22, 2011 - Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU) today enhanced its broadband portfolio to further accelerate the availability of superfast broadband services. With the first commercial availability of VDSL2 Vectoring technology, Alcatel-Lucent is helping communications service providers dramatically boost the data speeds and capacity of existing copper access networks to bring consumers and businesses broadband speeds of 100 megabits per second (Mbps) and beyond.

By boosting the capabilities of copper access networks, Alcatel-Lucent makes it possible for service providers to make the best use of existing copper infrastructure. As a result, operators now have the ability to improve their broadband offerings and reach more subscribers much more quickly than ever before.

Many governments have recognized that universal broadband is critical for e-health, e-learning, and socio-economic development. National broadband plans set specific bandwidth targets and timelines. In order to meet end-user demand, competitive pressure, and government targets, many operators have started looking at ways to accelerate broadband availability and reach.

Rob Gallagher, Principal Analyst, Head of Broadband & TV Research, Informa, said: “Alcatel-Lucent's plan to make VDSL2 vectoring commercially available is very timely. Service providers and governments have stated their intent to boost broadband speeds to consumers and businesses alike, but the challenges associated with comprehensive fiber-to-the-home deployments have been a major obstacle. VDSL2 Vectoring promises to bring speeds of 100Mbps and beyond to advanced copper/fiber hybrid networks and make superfast broadband speeds available to many more people, much faster than many in the industry had thought possible.”

In making the gradual transition to fiber, many operators can benefit from reliable, cost-effective options that allow high bandwidth to be delivered on a faster schedule. With more than 1.25 billion1 of the world‟s households currently connected to copper lines, next-generation DSL technologies, such as VDSL2 and Vectoring provide effective ways to provide more bandwidth to more subscribers using existing copper resources.

Dave Geary, President, Wireline Division of Alcatel-Lucent, said: “With our enhanced broadband portfolio, including VDSL2 Vectoring and recent innovations in next-generation fiber, operators can deliver new services and generate new revenue, quickly. Our objective is to help operators – and nations - „get to fast, faster‟. For operators this means shortening the time needed to recoup their investments, and making it easier for them to meet various national broadband goals.”

Alcatel-Lucent has unparalleled expertise in VDSL2 – the company has supplied more than half of the VDSL2 lines in the field today, worldwide. Over the past 8 years, the company has pioneered innovative approaches to allow operators to get the most out of their copper plant: for example high-capacity

VDSL platforms and VDSL2 Bonding deployments, both of which were market firsts. With VDSL2 Vectoring, Alcatel-Lucent continues this tradition of being first-to-market. In 2010, the company developed the first Vectoring prototype, allowing the company to engage in extensive lab and field trials with service providers worldwide including Belgacom, Telekom Austria, and Turk Telekom. This early experience with each evolution of the technology gives Alcatel-Lucent a significant edge over the competition.

Visit our website to find out how Alcatel-Lucent is delivering faster broadband with Copper Access solutions such as VDSL2 Vectoring.

Or, read the newest Alcatel-Lucent TechZine feature:“Boosting VDSL2 Bit Rates with Vectoring”

ABOUT ALCATEL-LUCENT (EURONEXT PARIS AND NYSE: ALU)

The long-trusted partner of service providers, enterprises, strategic industries and governments around the world,

Alcatel-Lucent is a leader in mobile, fixed, IP and Optics technologies, and a pioneer in applications and services.

Alcatel-Lucent includes Bell Labs, one of the world's foremost centres of research and innovation in

communications technology.

With operations in more than 130 countries and one of the most experienced global services organizations in the

industry, Alcatel-Lucent is a local partner with global reach.

The Company achieved revenues of Euro 16 billion in 2010 and is incorporated in France and headquartered

in Paris.

For more information, visit Alcatel-Lucent on: http://www.alcatel-lucent.com, read the latest posts on the Alcatel-

Lucent blog http://www.alcatel-lucent.com/blog and follow the Company on Twitter:

http://twitter.com/Alcatel_Lucent.

ALCATEL-LUCENT PRESS CONTACTS

SIMON POULTER simon.poulter@alcatel-lucent.com T : +33 (0)1 40 76 50 84

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ALCATEL-LUCENT INVESTOR RELATIONS

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