DECEMBER 17, 2009 By Stephen Hardy -- Much as it conducted field trials of 100-Gbps technology before this week’s announcement of commercial deployment, Verizon has embarked on trials of 10-Gbps GPON FTTP technology. The carrier announced yesterday that it conducted the tests in southern Massachusetts using equipment from Huawei.
The ITU-T has not completed 10G GPON (XG-PON) standards work, which aims to develop specifications for the transmission of as much as 10 Gbps downstream at 1577 nm and 2.4 Gbps upstream at 1270 nm. (It retains GPON’s 1550 nm for RF overlay and related functions and eventually will also accommodate 10 Gbps upstream.) However, the process is far enough along that several vendors, including Huawei, have begun development of XG-PON technology.
Verizon tested 10-Gbps downstream and 2.4-Gbps upstream performance both in isolation and on a fiber simultaneously carrying standard GPON traffic. An XG-PON OLT in a nearby central office was paired with a “test cart” at a customer location. According to Dr. Vincent O’Byrne, director of technology for Verizon, the test cart comprised an XG-PON ONT, test equipment, various home networking devices (e.g., TVs, a set-top box, and a broadband home router), and 100 ft of coax.
O’Byrne reports that the tests showed very good performance in both test scenarios; an Ixia throughput tester showed no packet loss. He described the transmission as “close” to 10 Gbps downstream and 2.4 Gbps upstream, with no interference between the GPON and XG-PON transmissions. O’Byrne says that the link budget was slightly below the expected specification “but this Huawei will be adjusting as part of their normal commercialization of their product and represented the best that was available at the time.”
Huawei does not currently supply Verizon with GPON equipment. Verizon says it expects to conduct trials with other equipment vendors -- presumably including its GPON suppliers, Alcatel-Lucent and Motorola -- “over the coming months.”
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