Verizon Ventures invests in NG-PON2 ONT transceiver developer PICadvanced

Aug. 10, 2020
Founded in 2014 and headquartered in Ilhavo, Portugal, PICadvanced is arguably the most successful of the companies working on NG-PON2 tunable transceivers.

Verizon Ventures says it led a recent €4 million ($4.5 million) Series A funding round in PICadvanced (PICa), a Portuguese developer of tunable optical transceivers for NG-PON2 optical network terminals (ONTs) as well as other optics. Verizon was joined in the round by a 200M Co-investment Fund managed by PME Investments.

Founded in 2014 and headquartered in Ilhavo, Portugal, PICadvanced is arguably the most successful of the companies working on NG-PON2 tunable transceivers, at least among those discussing their work publicly (see “NG-PON2 tunable transceiver work shows signs of progress”). As its name implies, the company also is working in the area of photonic integrated circuits (PICs). “By working with PICa, Verizon will be able to deliver more bandwidth at a lower cost per bit, which could be used to support business services and wireless backhaul on the same fiber as residential services,” said Verizon Ventures in announcing the financing.

NG-PON2 is a multiwavelength approach to next-generation PON based on IEEE standards (see “ITU-T approves XGS-PON, amends NG-PON2 specifications”). The architecture is based on symmetrical transmission of 10-Gbps wavelengths; while the standard supports eight wavelengths, initial systems offered to the market support four. A tunable transceiver is needed at the ONT to focus on the wavelength assigned to that ONT. Developing a cost-effective tunable transceiver has been seen as a major obstacle to widespread use of NG-PON2.

“Verizon sees a tremendous amount of potential in the way NG-PON2 can improve its optical access network and deliver greater bandwidth to the end user,” said Glenn Wellbrock, director of optical transport network architecture, design and planning at Verizon, via the funding announcement.

According to Verizon, the need for more capacity and service flexibility for 5G is expected to drive next-generation network standards, including NG-PON2, to more than $2 billion in total market size by 2024, up from $250 million in 2019.

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