Alcatel-Lucent 'converges' LTE and FTTH technologies

Stuart Corner
Tuesday, 08 September 2009 08:48

IT Industry - Strategy

Alcatel-Lucent has demonstrated the next generation of its gigabit passive optical network technology, capable of delivering 10Gbps per node and its use to backhaul base stations supporting 3G LTE, the next iteration of today's wireless broadband technology.

Alcatel-Lucent said the demonstration had shown that LTE and next-generation passive optical networking (PON) technologies could "converge seamlessly for a smooth delivery of the most demanding, high-speed broadband services," and "showed LTE's capability to deal with multiple concurrent video streams and fast channel change."

Philippe Keryer, president of Alcatel-Lucent's carrier activities, said that, with the demonstration the company had also wanted to put a particular focus on 10G GPON's ability to co-exist with its 2.5G predecessor. "Approximately 60 percent to 70 percent of a PON investment relates to the service provider's outside plant - so it is extremely important that the evolution to 10G GPON does not jeopardise today's investments. Deploying GPON today clearly continues to be a safe bet, a smooth migration path having been secured."

"Proving that 10G GPON is a viable upgrade path from today's 2.5G deployments - and demonstrating its ability to function in mixed GPON environments - eliminates two key long-term concerns for operators," said Jeff Heynen, directing analyst broadband and video at Infonetics Research. "They don't want to strand their initial GPON investment nor do they want to cut over existing subscribers when they don't have to."

This compatibility is likely to be particularly important for Australia's NBN with its eight year planned rollout: initial deployments are likely to use 2.5G GPON technology, and later ones 10G. GPON technology has a downstream bandwidth to each passive optical splitter of 2.5Gbps and 1.25Gbps upstream. 10G GPON will have a downstream bandwidth of 10Gbps and 2.5Gbps upstream. Standards for 10G GPON are yet to be finalised by the IEEE.

Although mobile networks and FTTx networks are often seen as quite distinct, as capacity demands increase mobile networks need more and more base stations serving smaller areas in order to maximise usage of the available spectrum. As these will in future be fibre backhauled, a cellular network starts to look like a fibre to the node network, with a wireless rather than a copper tail. Being able to use one fibre network to connect both cellular base stations and end user premises could yield significant economic benefits.