10Gig EPON Warms Up
The GPON camp has an easy angle for criticizing 10-Gbit/s EPON: namely, that the standard's symmetric nature means putting 10-Gbit/s optics inside customer premises equipment (CPE), the side of PON that needs high volumes and relatively low prices.
The EPON camp volleys back by pointing out that most deployments are going to be in Asia, in multiple-tenant circumstances. Assuming decent take-up rates, that means the 10-Gbit/s cost gets divided up.
"In countries like Korea, the cost of a PON -- the customer premises equipment and a portion of the central office equipent -- is $80 per subscriber at 1 Gbit/s," says Julie Kunstler, vice president of business development at Teknovus Inc. For 10 Gbit/s, the cost could be about twice that -- but divided among multiple subscribers.
The result is that 10-Gbit/s EPON has a shot at being cheaper per subscriber than even 1 Gbit/s PONs, Kunstler says. "The cost estimates that have gone to the carriers have not spooked them."
— Craig Matsumoto, West Coast Editor, Light Reading