TOKYO -- OKI (TSE:6703) today announced the development of an adaptive network configuration technology and success in channel-switching between current GE-PON1 systems and the 10 GE-PON2 system, next generation high-capacity optical access. Based on improved functionality in optical line terminals and optical network units, the breakthrough results in a flexible, low-cost optical access system for subscription-based 100-km broadband optical networks.

Despite the rapid advance of FTTH (Fiber-To-The-Home), optical access systems based on current GE-PON systems provide a service range limited to 20 km. Expanding this requires the installation of creating a “digital divide” in underperforming areas and sparsely populated regions, restricting users access to high-speed broadband. Demand has also emerged in the area of subscription-based optical networks for the high adaptability required to respond flexibly to a growing subscriber base, as well as for various services and variable transmission capacity.

To address these issues, The National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT; an independent administrative institution) in 2009 commissioned OKI to initiate research on subscription- based broadband optical network technologies that would enable broadband services without installing new center offices, based on virtualized connections between optical line terminals and optical network units. With support from NIPPON TELEGRAPH AND TELEPHONE CORPORATION, OKI connected NIPPON TELEGRAPH AND TELEPHONE EAST CORPORATION’s buildings (in Sapporo, Eniwa, and Chitose in Hokkaido) with optical fiber, demonstrating the feasibility of a flexible optical access network in a testbed simulating a total transmission distance of 100 km for subscription-based broad optical networks.

Oki Electric Industry Co. Ltd.