July 6, 2005 Alameda, CA -- UTStarcom today announced that it has signed a contract with Softbank BB, the leading provider of broadband services in Japan, to expand the provider's existing Gigabit Ethernet passive optical network (GEPON) network in support of its Hikari fiber broadband service.
"UTStarcom's GEPON technology enables us to offer our subscribers broadband speeds up to 1 Gbit/sec over optical fiber," says Keiichi Makizono, general manager of technical division at Softbank BB. "Achieving these broadband speeds is another milestone in the successful partnership between UTStarcom and Softbank BB to deliver broadband services to the Japanese market."
"This contract expands our initial GEPON contract with Softbank announced in October 2004, in support of their Yahoo! BB Hikari FTTH service," adds Michio Nakanishi, president and CEO of UTStarcom Japan K.K. "We believe that GEPON technology is the best means of delivering the speeds and bandwidth necessary for revenue-generating, triple play services such as Television over IP (TVoIP)."
Compliant with all IEEE standards, including the IEEE 802.3ah standard for Ethernet PON (EPON), UTStarcom's GEPON product family includes its BBS1000 optical line termination system (OLT) for deployment at a central office (CO), as well as an optical network unit (ONU) for deployment at the customer's premises. The OLT provides a direct optical interface to the IP core, while the ONU terminates the PON at the customer's premises. Together, the two units complete the end-to-end optical last mile, providing up to 1 Gbit/sec of bandwidth to residential and business customers.
According to the company, the platform's advanced Layer 2 and Layer 3 switching and routing functionality eliminates the need for carriers to deploy additional network equipment at the metro edge, making GEPON an optimal transport platform for support of bandwidth-intensive triple-play services. The company says the platform's embedded operation, administration, and maintenance enables operators to perform flexible provisioning, remote diagnostics, and remote system upgrades.