ADTRAN, Inc. (NASDAQ:ADTN) says Openreach has switched on the first fiber to the home (FTTH) customer connection enabled via an ADTRAN SDX optical network terminal (OLT). Openreach deployed the SDX unit in the Towcester ATE exchange in Northamptonshire. An Openreach source said the connection is the first of what could be a substantial number as the broadband infrastructure arm of BT aims to make gigabit-ready FTTH infrastructure available to 20 million homes by the middle-to-latter parts of this decade.
The subscriber connection occurred approximately nine months after Openreach selected ADTRAN as its third FTTH gear supplier for the current roll-out (see “Openreach to deploy ADTRAN SDX OLTs for FTTP”). ADTRAN joins Nokia and Huawei as a potential source of OLTs (see “Openreach chooses Huawei and Nokia for Fibre First national FTTP roll out”), although use of the latter’s equipment likely will be minimized going forward due to security concerns. Peter Bell, director, network technology at Openreach, declined to disclose how the company plans to divvy up future deployments other than to say that “I’m sure ADTRAN will get a big piece of that pie.”
Bell praised ADTRAN’s SDX for its scalability and automation-enabled ease of deployment. As the newest option in Openreach’s arsenal, the disaggregated platform carries a number of software-defined access capabilities. However, Bell said Openreach is using a “traditional” model for deploying the SDX and its other OLTs, with the addition of SDN concepts to its broadband network a future consideration.
Similarly, Bell said leveraging the SDX’s ability to support 10G XGS-PON also is not in Openreach’s current plans. He noted that Openreach currently uses point-to-point infrastructures to support the business and mobile network applications often cited as 10G PON drivers, but that PON could be considered in the future.
Several, and perhaps most, of Openreach’s FTTH deployments are overlays of VDSL infrastructure. Bell said that G.fast still has a role to play, although Openreach is looking at fiber-to-the-flat for MDU applications.
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Stephen Hardy | Editorial Director and Associate Publisher, Lightwave
Stephen Hardy is editorial director and associate publisher of Lightwave and Broadband Technology Report, part of the Lighting & Technology Group at Endeavor Business Media. Stephen is responsible for establishing and executing editorial strategy across the both brands’ websites, email newsletters, events, and other information products. He has covered the fiber-optics space for more than 20 years, and communications and technology for more than 35 years. During his tenure, Lightwave has received awards from Folio: and the American Society of Business Press Editors (ASBPE) for editorial excellence. Prior to joining Lightwave in 1997, Stephen worked for Telecommunications magazine and the Journal of Electronic Defense.
Stephen has moderated panels at numerous events, including the Optica Executive Forum, ECOC, and SCTE Cable-Tec Expo. He also is program director for the Lightwave Innovation Reviews and the Diamond Technology Reviews.
He has written numerous articles in all aspects of optical communications and fiber-optic networks, including fiber to the home (FTTH), PON, optical components, DWDM, fiber cables, packet optical transport, optical transceivers, lasers, fiber optic testing, and more.
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