Chip vendors top 100 Meg at Fast Net Futures

SANTA CLARA, Calif.—Broadband deployments hit warp speed today when both Ikanos and Metalink demonstrated at the Fast Net Futures show here chip sets that can send data at 100 Mb/s downstream and 50 Mb/s upstream.

While only a demonstration under near ideal conditions, the two companies insist that carriers, most in Asia, are asking for such speeds now and that they will be able to deliver it very soon. During the demonstration, Ikanos used data over 1500 feet of 26 gauge twisted pair while Metalink did the same over 300 meters of 26 gauge wire.

“100 Mb/s is not the future; it’s here today,” said Richard Sekar, vice president of marketing for Ikanos, noting that carriers in Japan are already deploying equipment that provides 70 Mb/s downstream and 30 Mb/s upstream. “Bandwidth is the killer app.”

Both companies are using frequencies above 12 MHz to achieve the high-end data rates. Additionally, Metalink used the opportunity to plug its proposed version of VDSL2, which would divide the frequencies between 12 MHz and 30 MHz.