Alcatel-Lucent nabs GPON win in Hong Kong

NOVEMBER 29, 2007 -- Alcatel-Lucent (search for Alcatel-Lucent) and Hong Kong Broadband Network Limited (HKBN), a wholly-owned subsidiary of City Telecom (HK) Limited, have announced the deployment of what they claim is the first GPON (search for GPON)-based network in Hong Kong. The collaboration contract also includes network maintenance.

Alcatel-Lucent says its FTTH portfolio will enable HKBN to deliver advanced triple-play services to its subscribers and enlarge its FTTH network coverage in Hong Kong. The new network is expected to be in service in January 2008.

The demand for advanced multimedia and data services in Hong Kong is expected to increase substantially in the coming years, driven by services such as high-definition TV (HDTV) and enhanced multimedia applications. According to the FTTH Councils of Asia-Pacific, Europe, and North America, Hong Kong is the world leader in percentage of homes wired with broadband communications over direct fiber-optic connections, followed by South Korea and Japan. HKBN, the first provider in Hong Kong to launch FTTH 100-Mbit/sec and 1-Gbit/sec services in 2005, plans to increase its coverage from 1.4 million to 2 million home passed within three years.

"After an intensive trial of Alcatel-Lucent's GPON solution, we are pleased with the maturity and performance of the technology," reports Paul Cheung, CEO of HKBN. "By leveraging Alcatel-Lucent's market-leading expertise in FTTH, we will continue to deploy new and advanced service offerings, providing seamless and premium connectivity services catering to our customers' requirements."

"We are proud to partner with Hong Kong Broadband delivering the first GPON network in Hong Kong," adds Frederic Rose, president of Alcatel-Lucent's business in Europe, Middle East, Africa, and Asia. "We are committed to provide them with our best-of-breed solutions and global expertise and to help them maintain [their] technology leadership in advanced broadband deployment."

Per the agreement, Alcatel-Lucent will deploy the 7342 Intelligent Services Access Manager Fiber-to-the-Home (ISAM FTTU) system, which the company says is designed specifically for packet-based voice convergence and triple-play services and delivers maximum bandwidth and quality of service (QoS) over a fiber access network. Alcatel-Lucent representatives say the system enables seamless multimedia services such as high-speed data, IPTV, VoIP, content on demand, and interactive multi-media services. The system can deliver any mix of voice, video, or data over a single fiber that terminates at the subscriber's premises supporting 2.5 Gbits/sec downstream--the highest bandwidth offered to the mass market today, says the company.

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