Cable's in hot pursuit of PON

Many cable operators are plowing ahead with hybrid fiber/coax (HFC) upgrades, but a sizable portion of those operators are also deploying PON technologies for targeted fiber-to-the-premises (FTTP) buildouts in rural areas and other greenfield environments. Others, such as Altice USA and Virgin Media O2, are moving aggressively with PON overlays of their legacy HFC networks.

A recent Omdia survey shines the light on how PON activity is rising among cable operators. Omdia (a sister company to Light Reading) found that about 35% of cable operators surveyed have already deployed PON in their networks, with another 47% expected to do so within the next year. Just 8% said they have no plans to deploy PON at this time.

(Source: Omdia)

Taken together, this means about 80% of operators, as surveyed by Omdia, will be deploying PON in some form or fashion by next spring, observed Heavy Reading Contributing Analyst Alan Breznick, who moderated a recent "LiveLearning" webinar focused on next-gen PON technologies and trends hosted by Light Reading in conjunction with SCTE.

The PON trend is also taking shape at key industry organizations. A prime example is CableLabs, which recently launched a pair of fiber-oriented working groups focused on optical operations and maintenance and on specifying a DOCSIS framework for the provisioning of ITU-based PON technology, including 10-Gig-capable XGS-PON.

Related:CableLabs gets 'laser focused on FTTP'

While today's PON deployments are largely focused on 10-Gig technologies, there's already some action focused on next-gen 25-Gig technologies. Google Fiber is starting to head in that direction, and EPB, a municipal operator in Chattanooga, Tennessee, has already introduced symmetrical 25 Gbit/s services across a footprint that passes about 180,000 homes and businesses.

What's next for PON

Douglas Blue, a business development exec for Nokia's fixed networks unit for North America, believes that 10-Gig PON technologies will represent the status quo in areas where competition is limited, but sees 25-Gig PON taking off where competition is more heated. He doesn't consider 25G PON as "next-gen," given that shipments of products such as optical line terminals (OLTs) have been underway for about four years.

Richard Rommes, VP of access networks solutions and strategy at Harmonic, agrees that 10G PON has some legs, but views 100G PON as the next big upgrade on the horizon.

But speed and capacity are just two parts of the equation.

"The real issue here probably isn't the speed," but how operators manage these new networks and make the required upgrades to their back-office systems, Richard Loveland, director of product line management, PON for FTTP products, Vecima Networks, said. Cable operators, he said, will have to decide to focus on DOCSIS-style technologies or consider changing over to new systems and platforms.

Related:Nokia flaunts Google Fiber as 25G PON customer

Blue said unified access – and the ability to collapse multiple networks to serve multiple industry verticals – also ties into that thinking. He reckons that the capacities supported by 25G PON open the door to a unified access platform, arguing that 10G technologies will come up short.

Katie Espeseth, VP of new products at EPB, agrees, noting that 25G PON lowers costs while also delivering the kind of bandwidth required by hospitals, universities and other local institutions. "It [25G PON] has opened a whole new world for us," she said.

But some panelists did not see eye-to-eye on when 25G PON will be deployed en masse. Vecima's Loveland said merchant silicon is not available to support widespread deployment, and likewise isn't convinced if the next big play will be for 25G or 50G PON.

Blue argued that 25-Gig OLTs are already being deployed in mass quantities. Nokia, he said, has deployed about 1.1 million OLT ports. At a 1:32 split, that equates to 32 million end points that could potentially have 25G capabilities. But he did acknowledge that it could take another six months to a year before pricing on 25G optical network terminals (ONTs) will come down and help to drive the market further.

PON today, quantum computing tomorrow

EPB has been on the forefront of PON technologies, but the company is also starting to focus on quantum computing, which uses the laws of quantum mechanics to, as IBM explains it, handle problems deemed too complex for classic computing architectures.

If classic computing is characterized as a "crack in the wall," quantum computing is like opening the Grand Canyon, Espeseth said.

"We do think that quantum technology is going to be driving this country forward in 2035, 2040… and we think we need to be moving in that direction now," she explained.

EPB launched its quantum network about a year ago. Starting with a 5-kilometer loop with the ability to expand to ten nodes, the plans call for the municipal operator to increase the network to 20 kilometers and then "at least" 90 kilometers, Espeseth said.

She said quantum computing has a potential role in EPB's electric grid, which will be evolved to manage millions of connected devices reliably and securely.

Espeseth stressed that PON technology has a "long life" and that EPB is not moving away from the technology.

"But all of this really relies on that foundational technology of fiber," she said. Espeseth said EPG will be able to layer quantum computing technology on top of its existing PON network architecture.