Tel Aviv based fast broadband specialist Sckipio Technologies and South Korean internet access provider SK Broadband have flagged the first commercial deployment of Gfast 212 MHz gigabit internet in Asia, with the ISP rolling out the service in Seoul and Seongnam.

Combining fiber and copper, SK Broadband kicked off  commercial service to residential customers with the world’s first NG-PON2 supporting up to 52.25Gbps, as well as XGS-PON.

“Most South Korean apartment buildings already have fiber to the basement. Yet, often these are older buildings, making it impractical to bring fiber all the way to the apartment. That is the reason why only 34 percent of South Korean apartments have fiber all the way to the apartment while the remaining 66 percent are needing another approach,” said Sckipio. “That is where Gfast comes in.”

Gfast is a standards-based access network technology that adds true gigabit connections to each unit in the building by using the existing twisted pair telephone wiring.

“This true vectoring technology provides concurrent gigabit service to all subscribers connected within the same wire binder at the same time, which vectorless technology cannot achieve,” Sckipio added.

Gfast can also be extended to up to 96 gigabit ports by stacking distribution point units (DPUs) together and vectoring across them – offering carriers such as SKBB significant CAPEX savings.

“SK Broadband is determined to provide gigabit internet to all, but not all South Korean apartments can be easily wired with fiber all the way to the apartment,” said Choong-Bok Lee, the manager in charge of access networks at SK Broadband, tipping Sckipio’s Gfast. product as the best way to extend gigabit fiber performance to these apartments over existing twisted pair telephone wires.

According to the Korean Statistical Information Service, over half of the residents of Seoul and the surrounding Gyeonggi Province live in high-rise buildings with a high density of apartments. To reach all these residents with gigabit speeds required new Gfast solutions that can support both the latest 212MHz technology and that can implement vectoring (crosstalk cancellation technique) over a large count of lines simultaneously.