VDSL chips topping 100

For all those stuck in the sub-1.5 Mb/s world, Ikanos Communications and Metalink have just given you another reason to be jealous. Both companies this week have announced chip sets that will push VDSL deployments to 100 Mb/s and beyond.

Ikanos, which also said it has exceeded two million ports shipped since volume production began less than 18 months ago, this week introduced its Fx family of chipsets, which it claims is the first programmable silicon solution to extend FTTP and FTTH services over copper. Specifically, the company said its chips will allow line card to provide service at 100 Mb/s.

A day later, Metalink announced volume production of its second generation VDSLPlus Chipsets that will allow carriers to offer service exceeding 100Mbps downstream and 50Mbps upstream. The set includes Geryon-II high-density for COs and Xanthus-III+ for features rich CPEs--critical for the provision of profitable broadband services.

Part of the rush to top the 100 mark comes from an increased activity in FTTP, said Richard Sekar, vice president of marketing at Ikanos.

"In the FTTP deployment, it’s Japan and the U.S. that are driving the rest of the world," he said.

Additionally, as U.S. carriers start contemplating video deployments they are going to need the highest possible bandwidth to come to market a high quality product. Under most deployment scenarios, 100 Mb/s would be enough to provide multiple HDTV streams as well as high-speed Internet access with plenty of bandwidth to spare.

"There is no way on earth telcos will compromise on quality when they’re competing with cable TV," Sekar said.