MAY 31, 2007 -- PMC-Sierra Inc. (search for PMC-Sierra) says that its FTTH chips have been deployed in more than 4 million Gigabit EPON optical network units (ONUs). The IC supplier believes the milestone demonstrates that FTTH is now the preferred technology for gigabit/sec access to the home and business.
Gigabit FTTH deployment is outpacing DSL broadband access in Japan (according to the Japanese Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications), and in Korea, PMC-Sierra and DASAN Networks recently announced a Korea Telecom contract for expected deployment of 800,000 EPON ONUs this year in Seoul. In China, benchmark testing is underway on equipment from three of China's largest equipment vendors based on PMC-Sierra's GEPON silicon, led by China Telecom.
"As the first to reach high-volume deliveries, PMC-Sierra is well positioned to be a leader in emerging Gigabit EPON markets such as China, while it continues to grow market share in Japanese and Korean deployments," said Jeff Heynen, directing analyst, broadband and IPTV, at Infonetics. "Based on the deployments to date and the benchmarking and field trials that are currently underway, it seems likely that EPON will be the predominant gigabit access technology in most of the key Asia markets."
"This is an important benchmark for the FTTH industry as these high volume deployments will drive economies of scale that will lower overall FTTH equipment costs and cost of ownership," said Victor Vaisleib, general manager of the FTTH Business Unit at PMC-Sierra. "And, PMC-Sierra is able to leverage the extensive technology and product base we established from our leadership in the EPON market to successfully enter the emerging GPON markets in Europe and North America."
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