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Post written by:

Jean-Luc Lemmens

Chairman & CEO

The worldwide fiber deployment has entered into an acceleration phase since the mid 2000’s. Fiber connectivity provides ubiquitous high-speed connectivity to connect everyone and everything from anywhere. Gigabit society is a key pillar for the digital transformation of our society. Based on Idate forecast, worldwide 5G subscriptions will reach more than 2000 million in 2026 and Worldwide FTTH/B subscriptions will be almost 1000 million by 2024. Currently, GPON and 10 GPON technology are under deployment. GPON, as the first generation of PON technology commercialized on a large-scale worldwide, paved the way for fiber technologies since 2009. From 2016, operators have begun to launch 10G PON around the world, especially in Asia. The period to move from one G PON technology to its next evolution is about 5 to 7 years. There is a considerable concern on the follow-up path of 10G PON.

Based on these elements IDATE DigiWorld organized a webinar “What do we learn from previous upgrade from GPON to 10GPON ?

What can we expect from the 50 GPON technology? ” On April 9t, IDATE DigiWorld held a webinar on April 9th” to answer these questions.

Here are the some key-learning points from our speakers:

  • “Progress and prospect of 50G TDM PON” by Zhang Dezhi, Broadband Research Expert from China Telecom 

According to Mr. Zhang, 10G PON has been massively deployed in China and gigabit users continue to grow rapidly. Currently, 8.03 million customers have access rates of 1,000 Mbps or above in China.  From a telecom operator point of view, 50G PON is the future of the PON technology for three aspects:  first, the 50G TMD PON can be used as the unified of the next generation of different PON technologies; second, 50G PON can support the coexistence with either 10G EPON or XG(S)-PON. Last but not least, 50G PON can increase system capacity 5 times than 10G PON to support long period of new business requirements such as 4K, VR/AR.

  • The Progress of FTTH and Demand of 50G PON by Burak Dogan, Access Transport Network Technology Manager from TurkCell  

Turkcell is the  leading FTTH leader in Turkey. According Mr. Dogan, 10G PON +Wi-Fi 6 should be enough for new services requirement like cloud gaming, 4K services and industry services in the next 5 years.  50G PON will be the best fit for the multi-gigabit campus Wi-Fi services. For mobile services, 50G PON is the best solution that can optimize fiber efficiency to cover all 5G backhaul and midhaul technical requirements.  Turkcell is planning to deploy 50G PON from 2024.

  • Considerations on 50G PON from Li Junwei, Senior Research Engineer from China Mobile Research Institute

As said by Mr. Li, video dominate the future traffic growth. China mobile will begin 50G PON trial form 2023.  50G PON is the preferred candidate technology as next generation after XG(S)-PON. From technical perspective, the reuse of existing ODN is the key element to consider in the evolution of PON technology by China Mobile.  50G PON technically can support smoothly evolution.   Deployment requirement of 50G PON in 2C markets might be ahead of 2H markets, given that 5G small cell backhaul requirement will be getting energetic from 2021. The new experience-oriented architecture is a key feature for the next generation PON access network.

  • “ 50G-PON Optical Component Technologies and Progress” from Robin Kung, Technical Expert from Sumitomo Asia

 Mr. Kung share some SUMITOMO technical research results of downstream direction 50G optical specification.  In summary, their EML, SOA and APD solutions can achieve 50G PON technical requirement in the future. : EML’s good bandwidth can make 50G (NRZ) operation;  SOA’s gain can obtain higher output power; APD’s sensitivity can meet ITU-T requirement.

  • “PON-X™ eXploring future PON” from Jacob Meachen, Product definition specialist form Semtech

According to Mr. Meachen, the future growth in 50G PON can be driven by gigabit services and Wi-Fi 6, the need for high density fibre and global infrastructure investment. From the point of view of Mr. Meachen, technology of asymmetric 50G PON ONU and OLT is mature and the symmetric 50G PON ONU and OLT is technology achievable and in development.

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