Openreach, BT’s access network subsidiary, and Nokia say they have collaborated on a test of the technology provider’s 25G PON technology. The successful tests will lead to field trials of 25G PON to evaluate its compatibility with GPON and XGS-PON infrastructures in various application scenarios this December.
The tests, conducted at the BT/Openreach labs at Adastral Park in Ipswich, leveraged Nokia’s 7360 ISAM FX 16 optical line terminal (OLT) platform. Nokia is a longstanding supplier of PON technology for Openreach, including for the company’s current Full Fibre deployment phase (see “Openreach taps Nokia for next FTTP roll-out stage”). Nokia also supplies BT with Gfast equipment (see “Openreach taps Huawei, Nokia for G.fast roll-out”).
“As the country’s largest digital infrastructure provider, it’s crucial that we continue to plan, innovate and evolve our network, to make sure we have the capacity and capabilities that the UK needs in the future,” stated Peter Bell, director, network technology at Openreach. “The Full Fibre network we’re building today is going to be the platform for the UK’s economic, social, and environmental prosperity, and these trials prove that we can keep upgrading the speeds and services our customers experience over that network for decades to come.”
“25G PON is market ready and is becoming the technology of choice with operators that need faster than 10 Gbps broadband speeds along with the flexibility to grow capacity in the future,” commented Emir Halilovic, principal analyst at Global Data. “Being a symmetrical technology, 25G PON provides operators with technology capable of supporting SME or enterprise connectivity, as well as 5G transport.”
Nokia foresees 25G PON as mechanism toward delivering high-end business services via PON architectures, according to a Nokia/Openreach press release. “The key to unlock the virtually unlimited capacity that fiber offers is to develop new generations of fiber technology – and faster chips,” added Sandy Motley, president of Nokia Fixed Networks. “Nokia’s Quillion chip allows us to have a solution that supports three generations of PON technology from a single platform that is already in the Openreach network. Having GPON, XGS-PON, and 25GS-PON all on the same fiber means Openreach can efficiently evolve the network capabilities, address new opportunities and connect more consumers, businesses and 5G cell sites.”
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