Fiber-to-the-home passings have sharply increased in recent years, with at least 40 million FTTH passings in the U.S. alone as of last fall. But actually installing fiber service to homes – especially when those homes are in multi-dwelling unit (MDU) buildings – continues to be costly, complex and time-consuming.
The job could get easier and less expensive if providers can better leverage a form of wiring that already exists in many homes – coaxial cable. While unmodified coax could pose a bandwidth bottleneck for running fiber service into the home, the telecom industry is coming up with some creative ways to boost the bandwidth potential of coax.
The latest comes from MDSLink, whose Multi-Gigabit Coax Small Form-factor Pluggable (MaGiC) module can extend fiber performance through existing coax connections in MDUs, single-family homes, hotels/resorts and offices.
The company’s MaGiC-SFP 2.5 provides up to 2.5 Gbps symmetrical, actual data rates when plugged into an Ethernet network via an SFP/SFP+ port.
In addition to directly connecting the user with 2.5 Gbps bandwidth, the module also could be used in applications like in-premise backhaul for wireless mesh network access points; point-to-point or building-to-building connections between media converters; or backhaul and powering for wireless access points in multiple rooms and hallways in hospitality or commercial building settings, MDSLink said in a statement.
MaGiC has a maximum packet error rate of 1e-6/1e-8 with a latency of six milliseconds. Also, channel stacking allows the delivery of up to 4 Gbps on a single coax wire by using high and low frequency MaGiC SFPs.
Jim Luciano, president and founder of MDSLink, told Fierce via email that the company also offers a 1 Gbps version of MaGiC and has a roadmap to support the next-generation Multimedia over coax (MoCA) Access 3.0 standard and up to 10 Gbps with backward interoperability with MoCA Access 2.5/2.0 when those capability becomes available and MDSLink sees enough market demand for it.
Given the massive surges in bandwidth demand that have occurred since early 2020 when the Covid-19 pandemic sent many workers home to work remotely, demand for more gigabits could come sooner rather than later.
Luciano said MDSLink had the idea for MaGiC long before the pandemic-related bandwidth surge as providers were starting to ramp up their fiber investments. Also, he pointed out that the company is leveraging a family of standards from the MoCA Alliance that goes back more than 15 years.
“We noticed that as the bandwidth demands were increasing, operators were responding with fiber installations,” he said. “While expensive, it is future proof. But the last few hundred feet were problematic as the incremental cost was significant when connecting from the basement to each apartment, for instance [in MDU buildings]. The coaxial cabling is already installed, in most cases, and last 100-foot connectivity could be solved seamlessly and inexpensively with an add-on module that delivers the speeds of fiber to each unit/apartment/office, etc. The pandemic and resulting work-from-home environment has only accelerated what was basically inevitable.”
The MaGiC module is already available from several MDSLink distribution partners. Regarding service provider interest, Luciano said, “There are operators (ISPs) and integrators (hotels, for instance) that are testing and evaluating MaGiC… none of whom are ready to go public.”
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MDSLink’s MaGiC announcements comes as the Federal Communications Commission has been talking lately about how to increase broadband choices for consumers living in multi-dwelling units.
However, MDSLink isn’t the only company trying to address the issues that arise in the last 100 meters of fiber installation. Nokia last month announced Gigabit Connect, a product with a similar intention, but one that relies on the G.fast standard to boost bandwidth over copper and coax connections in MDU buildings.