Gandalf spells thousand-fold broadband boost

EU's 'Gandalf' project promises a little broadband magic

An EU funded project dubbed 'Gandalf' is aiming to cast a spell over the internet by boosting broadband speeds by a factor of more than 1,000.

The EU Information Society Technologies' Gandalf project has been created to offer unprecedented data transfer rates seamlessly over fixed-line and wireless connections.

Scientists working on the initiative claim to have developed a groundbreaking technique to increase data rates a thousand-fold compared to existing DSL, and a hundred-fold compared to Wi-Fi.

The technology also allows data to flow over wireless and fixed-line communications, making the project the only initiative in the world to progress so far in both areas.

"Why not use the same technology for both fixed-line and wireless? That was the fundamental question that drove the project," explained Gandalf co-ordinator Javier Martí at the Technical University of Valencia in Spain.

"We also saw the need to address the additional challenge of obtaining high rates of data transfer, exceeding 1Gbps, over both cable and radio."

In order to overcome these hurdles, the project partners developed a technique using an optical feeder that allows data to be sent over cable in a format which also allows it to be transmitted over wireless networks.

This duality ensures that the access nodes and the modems in the homes or offices of end users are all the same regardless of whether they are receiving data via cable, radio or both.