NOVEMBER 7, 2008 -- With economic considerations on the minds of operators worldwide, now more than ever, it is imperative for communications service providers and equipment vendors to ensure their networks' integrity and minimize deployment risks through cost-effective testing, say Telcordia (search for Telcordia) representatives. Recognizing this, the organization recently hosted the 7th Full Service Access Network (search for FSAN) GPON Test Event at its U.S. headquarters.
"As the industry continues to move toward IP service creation and delivery, interoperable GPON equipment is critical to enabling cost reductions through volume production and increased market competition, thereby helping to increase the availability of high- capacity, fully converged, IP service networks," explains Rudi Schubert, director, Telcordia Network Product Integrity.
The event was organized by Telcordia in cooperation with FSAN (an affiliation of international network operators and telecom vendors), Corning Cable Systems, and TraceSpan Communications. The event allows vendors to verify their understanding of the relevant industry specifications and to validate implementations early in the development process, thereby avoiding costly changes later in a GPON product's commercial life.
In all, 13 system and device vendors participated, interconnecting GPON products and reference designs at Telcordia to test interoperability.
"We are very satisfied with the success of this test event, which shows that plug-and-play GPON interoperability will soon become a reality and demonstrates the maturity of GPON technology," reports Regis Coat of France Telecom, co-chair of the FSAN Interoperability Task Group. "This success has been achieved thanks to the excellent preparation of Telcordia and the close collaboration of all participating GPON system and device vendors."
"FSAN is currently working to unify OMCI [ONT Management & Control Interface]-related service provisioning interoperability methods," adds Paolo Solina of Telecom Italia and co-chair of the FSAN Interoperability Task Group. "The progress made at the Telcordia-hosted test event was a major step in demonstrating that the GPON standard (ITU-T G.984) allows full OMCI interoperability across a wide range of GPON implementations," he says.
The event involved 13 GPON equipment and integrated circuit device vendors, including Alcatel-Lucent, BroadLight, Cambridge Industries Group, Conexant Systems Inc., Freescale, Hitachi Communication Technologies Inc., Huawei, Ikanos Communications, Motorola, PMC-Sierra, RAD Data Communications, TXP Corp., and ZTE.
The main goal of Test Event was to demonstrate GPON equipment management interoperability via the OMCI, with focus on best practices documented in the draft ITU-T G-PON G.984.4 Implementers' Guide (G.984.4impl). The ITU G.984 GPON standard enables line rates of 2.5 Gbits/sec in the downstream direction (central office to customer) and 1.2 Gbits/sec in the upstream direction (customer to central office). Detailed test cases were carried out to verify the ONT equipment management, including OMCC establishment, Management Information Base (MIB) synchronization operations, ONT capability discover, and ONT software image updating.
The test infrastructure used at this event included the optical distribution network (ODN) fiber and the fiber distribution terminals of the Corning Cable Systems ClearCurve, plus the TraceSpan-provided GPON monitoring and diagnostic capabilities of the GPON Xpert Multi-Layer Analyzer.