BEIJING -- At the first passive optical network (PON) industry development workshop recently held in Beijing, a consensus has been reached to propose a PON industry development forum to the Broadband Forum (BBF) for the purpose of facilitating the coordination and collaboration among PON standards development organizations including ITU-T/FSAN, IEEE, and BBF so as to enhance industry convergence.

Due to the cost sensitivity of the PON industry that is primarily oriented to home broadband access, it was suggested at the workshop that the deployment of next generation PON system (10G+) has to take into considerations of the external ecosystem factors of transport networks, Ethernet, and data center networks and to reuse the cost-effective optical/electrical components and technologies that have been applied commercially in large scale. It was also suggested that to better the PON ecosystem, the community shall take proper measures including PON industry development coordination, standard requirement and roadmap management, and standardization coordination and cooperation. Finally, all participants agree to hold workshops whenever necessary to jointly discuss major technical issues emerging in PON industry development.

PON is the mainstream access technology used by operators in building fiber to the home (FTTH) ultra-broadband networks. Historically, there are two standard series: IEEE's EPON/10G EPON and ITU-T's GPON/XG(S)-PON. It induces to two types of system and related equipment in operators' networks, causing high network construction and maintenance costs. In order to promote a converged PON ecosystem, a group of Standards Development Organization (SDO) jointly issued a statement on PON convergence ("SDOs Team Up on PON Convergence", http://www.lightreading.com/gigabit/fttx/sdos-team-up-on-pon-convergence/d/d-id/731234?itc=lrnewsletter_lrdaily). To expand PON market scales, share industry chain resources, reduce deployment costs, and shorten the time to market (TTM), all present operator and vendor representatives at the workshop call for the convergence of standards and industry of next generation PON (10G+) to build a healthy and sustainable PON ecosystem.

Participating at the workshop, there are representatives from standard organizations, such as the Broadband Forum (BBF) and Institute of Communication Standards Research (ICSR), network operators including China Telecom, China Mobile, and China Unicom, and system equipment and optical module vendors including Huawei, Nokia Shanghai Bell, Accelink, FiberHome, Hisense, Source Photonics, and ZTE.

Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd.