TDC Group prepares for 1,000 Mbit/s

Better broadband. With a new technology, TDC Group is preparing to provide 1.3 million Danish households with broadband speeds of right up to 1,000 Mbit/s. Today, by comparison, the average broadband speed in a Danish household is about 30 Mbit/s.

Upgrading to the new technology, termed Docsis 3.1, will start at the beginning of 2016 and is planned for completion by the end of 2017. This means all Danish households with access to TDC Group’s coax network – often called the YouSee network or cable network – will be able to enjoy the new technology and extremely high broadband speeds. TDC-owned YouSee is therefore likely to be the first cable operator in Europe to consistently roll out the Docsis 3.1 standard throughout its entire coax network. Today, 1.3 million households already have access to the YouSee network.

“With Docsis 3.1 and 1,000 megabits per second we expect to more than satisfy the Danes’ broadband requirements up to the early 2020s. However, the technology will also be continuously developed,” says Senior Executive Vice President and COO at TDC Operations Peter Schleidt, who is responsible for TDC Group’s overall network.

Major investment for TDC – small investment for society
With such a dramatic boost for so many people, and in such a short timeframe, this is definitively the largest individual contribution to the Danish Parliament’s objective for all Danes to have access to 100 Mbit/s broadband by 2020.

“The good news is that 1.3 million Danish households will be able to have all the internet they need without new underground cables connecting up each home. The result is the same but the saving in excavation work will amount to many billion kroner. So even though it’s a large project, and a major investment for TDC Group, it is an incredibly cheap investment for society,” says Peter Schleidt.

With the roll-out plan for Docsis 3.1, half of all Danish households will have access to ten times the speed – three years earlier than the Parliament’s target.

YouSee launched broadband via the coax network in the autumn of 2000 by offering a 70 kbit/s (0.07 Mbit/s) connection. Ever since, the speed has gradually been increased with the build-out of new hardware and new technical standards. The current technology, Docsis 3.0, was introduced in 2010 and will therefore be replaced by 3.1 from 2016.