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Ultra-Broadband

BBWF 2010: Huawei's 10G GPON Coup

EuroBlog Ray Le Maistre, Editor-in-Chief 10/28/2010

6:20 AM -- PARIS -- Broadband World Forum 2010 -- Only a day after Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE: ALU) announced a planned trial of its 10G GPON (XG-PON) technology with Portugal Telecom SGPS SA (NYSE: PT), its fierce rival Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. says it has already completed a trial of that new flavor of fiber access with the very same operator. (See BBWF 2010: 10G GPON Hits Europe .)

The Chinese vendor says it worked with the Portuguese incumbent to transmit 3DTV content using the 10G GPON capabilities in its MA 5600T access platform.

There is a difference between the two trials, though. Huawei's platform enables asymmetrical capacity -- 10 Gbit/s downstream and 2.5 Gbit/s upstream -- while AlcaLu's is a symmetrical 10 Gbit/s platform.

The potential of next-generation PON systems has been one of the hot topics in Paris this week. (See BBWF 2010: Euro Vendor Joins WDM-PON Fray, BBWF 2010: Next-Gen FTTX, No Sure Bets in NG PONs, and BBWF 2010: Top 10 Topics.)

— Ray Le Maistre, International Managing Editor, Light Reading

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digits 12/5/2012 | 4:20:02 PM

re: BBWF 2010: Huawei's 10G GPON Coup

Huawei has already completed a trial of 10G GPON with Portugal Telecom, but the planned one with Alcatel-Lucent is different, in that the system used in the Huawei trial is asymmetrical (10G down, 2.5G up) while the AlcaLu one is symmetrical (10G both directions).

So -- Huawei got in early with a 10G GPON trial, but AlcaLu's will be the first with a symmetrical 10G GPON trial.... 

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spc_markl 12/5/2012 | 4:20:00 PM

re: BBWF 2010: Huawei's 10G GPON Coup

You raise some good questions.  We believe it is a two-to-four year window before the industry will see significant deployment of 10G PONs.

Mark Lutkowitz, Telecom Pragmatics

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Duh! 12/5/2012 | 4:20:00 PM

re: BBWF 2010: Huawei's 10G GPON Coup

10G upstream is a very significant technical accomplishment.  Kudos to the Bell Labs research team (and also to the management who funded them).

What we don't know is whether this is a demonstration of a hero experiment or a working prototype of an economically feasible system.   The devil, as always, is in the details.  For example:  were they able to build an uncooled 1270nm transmitter?  Can they achieve the full 28.5 dB loss budget?  Were they able to achieve  20km of  dispersion reach at the full loss budget?  Were they able to keep the burst mode overhead to 80 ns (as they are in GPON and BPON), or did they have to extend them  to achieve adequate decision threshold detection and timing recovery?  What is the FEC overhead?  What is the launch power and receiver sensitivity, and how were they able to achieve the latter?  Did they implement power levelling? 

I hope they'll publish a paper soon. Both because I'm very curious as to what they did, and because I think the team should get credit, regardless of whether it's ready for prime time.

As far as Huawei's XG-PON1, they have had at least two other field trials that I know of.  So has everybody else who is serious about being in the Tier-1 GPON business.  Good for them, but I wouldn't call it a coup.

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paolo.franzoi 12/5/2012 | 4:19:59 PM

re: BBWF 2010: Huawei's 10G GPON Coup

Mark,

I don't agree with your window but is your view:

10G PONs will reach price parity with 1G or 2.5G PONs in 2 - 4 years; or

Some Residential service unknown at this time will require us to upgrade our computers to have 10G interfaces; or

Businesses will decide that redundancy is not important and dump 1:1 or 1+1 or equivalence for these slow 10G interfaces; or

Some other reason like cell site backhaul now requires 10G?

seven

 

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paolo.franzoi 12/5/2012 | 4:19:58 PM

re: BBWF 2010: Huawei's 10G GPON Coup

 

Really - clear....wow....

That is funny as it is completely unclear.  Let us create a nice symmetric 100Mb/s service.  Okay now that is selling for say $200 a month.  Now drop it on a GPON.  It is less than 2:1 oversubscribed.  That is nothing.

So, let's go back to why Verizon did the GPON RFP.  They rebid the network and got a lower price for GPON than they did for BPON.  So, voila a shift.

Note there are more costs than the lasers, but there are lots of costs in 10Gb/s lasers that are stable -40 to +85.

So, as far as I can tell there is no need for 10G PONs except as a great stalking horse to get people to do development.  Can you define the application that breaks GPON?

As I pointed out in other places in a much more technical discussion with Duh! than apparently then you can understand that the PON is not today the point of heavy oversubscription.  Let me put it this way to you...Going to run a 100G uplink out of the OLT?  Think before you type and don't buy into hype.  Remember AVERAGE load increases are not directly related to increases in speed at the demarc of the access.  There are more bits of equipment involved.

seven

 

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spc_markl 12/5/2012 | 4:19:58 PM

re: BBWF 2010: Huawei's 10G GPON Coup

Seven,

The need for 10G now is clear with PON. Certainly, lasers have gotten a whole lot cheaper and the need for symmetrical is a given.  However, if you look at the history of telecommunications networks, even when one bends over backwards to be conservative on projections, it is often the case that one still turns out to be optimistic.  Given the concerns of Dah! and the time it has taken historically to go from trials and RFIs to actual widespread implementation on all types of technology, I do not believe that predicting large deployment taking at least a couple of years from now is out of line. 

Mark

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spc_markl 12/5/2012 | 4:19:57 PM

re: BBWF 2010: Huawei's 10G GPON Coup

Seven,

I admit that I totally misunderstood your position.  I am the last one to hype any new technology.  Usually, I have to defend myself on my very conservative projections.

If anything, it would not totally surprise me if it takes more than four years to get to 10G GPON in a big way.

At the same time, one could make an argument that 10G GPON today could be used for business connections (where symmetrical is necessary).  Also, my understanding is that in China, the technology is being used for MDUs.  Certainly, a radiologist would love to have a 10G GPON into his home. 

While we also believe that LTE in the US will be restricted to major cities, within four years, what do you think is going to happen with backhaul on PONs?

The one aspect that you have to answer is not the fact that you necessarily need 10G.  But that you need more than 2.5G.  Where will you go?

The cost curve on 10G is coming down quickly.  It will eventually be the same cost as 2.5G. 

By the way, what is your window for 10G?

Mark

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