Alcatel-Lucent  and Chunghwa Telecom, Taiwan’s service provider, are to commence the world’s first commercial deployment of G.fast ultra-broadband access technology, allowing the acceleration of ‘last mile’ connectivity to deliver ultra-fast fiber-like speeds to households everywhere.

Currently 68% of homes in Taiwan enjoy broadband cable for Internet access. However, with growing demand for 4K TV and streaming HD video services, the need for ultra-broadband access is steadily increasing. To address this need, Chunghwa Telecom is conducting a nationwide roll-out of FTTx (fiber-to-the-premises) infrastructure to residential and business customers using a combination of fiber and copper technology. To accelerate these deployments and enable the delivery of near-gigabit speeds, Chunghwa Telecom will deploy Alcatel-Lucent’s GPON and G.fast technologies.

Alcatel-Lucent and its Bell Labs research arm have played a pioneering role in the development and implementation of G.fast, which has already been in trials with more than 30 operators worldwide. G.fast, in particular, allows service providers to provide ultra-broadband access to locations where fiber deployment is difficult, using the final length of copper infrastructure extending into premises to deliver ultra-high speeds. Additionally, G.fast eliminates the need to rewire entire buildings and homes, the most costly and time consuming part of any FTTx deployment.

The combination of fiber and G.fast will enable Chunghwa Telecom to quickly provide fast broadband to tens of thousands of homes in Taiwan within two years, and also meet the country’s National Communications Commission plan to improve fixed broadband access in hard-to-reach residential locations. Chunghwa Telecom will launch ultra-broadband services using G.fast to the 8.4 million Taiwanese homes, low- and high-rise buildings in the fourth quarter of 2015.