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Countries in western Europe, including the UK, are set to lead the way with the deployment of new high-speed connectivity technology that should provide millions of homes and businesses with a significant increase in their potential network speeds.
This is according to a recent report from Ovum, which forecast some 29 million premises around the world will have access to G.fast technology by 2021.
It noted that countries in western Europe are set to be more aggressive than other parts of the world when it comes to the rollout of this technology, partly in order to meet a European Commission target of ensuring that 50 per cent of premises have access to speeds of at least 100Mbps by 2020.
Around 11 per cent of broadband services are expected to be delivered via G.fast in this region in the next five years, compared with just three per cent of connections in other parts of the world.
G.fast enables operators to increase the amount of bandwidth available using existing assets, which means they can offer speeds comparable to more costly fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) solutions without the need for lengthy infrastructure upgrades.
The report stated: "G.fast is a central component of a FTTDP (fibre-to-the-distribution-point) deployment architecture, with fibre deployed deep into the network and the VDSL tail reduced to under 400 metres and, in many instances, under 100 metres."
So far, six providers around the world have announced full rollouts of the technology, five of which are in Europe. These include BT Openreach in the UK, Germany's M-net and NetCologne, Switzerland-based Swisscom and Austrian company Telekom Austria.
The only non-European operator to have reached this stage is Japan's Energia Communications, although telecoms firms in the US, Taiwan and Israel have reached the large-scale field trial stage.
In the UK, BT Openreach is expected to launch its first commercial G.fast services next year, while an extension to its current pilot of the technology will see another 140,000 premises obtain access to the technology by March 2017.
Chief executive of Openreach Clive Selley said: "Our aim is to make ultra-fast broadband available to 12 million homes and businesses in the UK by the end of 2020, and we're embracing a mix of technologies with G.fast and FttP to achieve that."
Of these, ten million premises will be connected using G.fast technology, with the remainder to be served by FTTP.
Mr Selley added one of the key benefits of G.fast is that it enables telecom providers to deliver ultra-fast speeds to customers quickly, affordably and at scale.
Field trials conducted by BT have seen average speeds of 330Mbps delivered, which may offer significant improvements for many business users. At a time when networks are under pressure as a result of exponentially-increasing data demands, due to factors such as big data, the Internet of Things, and 4K video streaming, fast speeds will be essential to the smooth running of any business.
