FTTHblog » Standards

Posted on 05.23.07

These excerts from TXP earnings announcement:

-Our results for the first quarter reflect a strong increase in our prototyping and pre-production services, coupled with initial sales of ONT units from our ONT Solutions group

-During the first quarter, we achieved several important milestones further validating our ONT strategy. First, we signed a new re-seller agreement with a major communications technology and infrastructure provider that has begun distributing TXP’s BPON ONT units to its customers. We believe this marks the first of many ODM relationships with PON equipment manufacturers who will use our ONTs to provide PON-based service delivery solutions to carriers worldwide. Second, we commenced shipments of our Broadband Passive Optical Network (BPON) ONT units to an OEM and a Tier 1 carrier, validating our two-pronged strategy of pursuing both carriers and OEMs.

-As anticipated, the major systems vendors and carriers are beginning to explore OEM sourcing for more cost-effective, time-sensitive ONT solutions that are interoperable across a wide range of networks. We have now demonstrated interoperability with three leading Optical Line Terminal (OLT) OEMs and are moving to demonstrate interoperability across all major platforms.

Filed under: Business and Standards
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GPON Interoperability

Posted on 05.04.07

In this Telecommunications Magazine article David Cleary, VP of Advanced Technology at Calix, details the process of setting standards for GPON interoperability among vendors and talks about lessons learned from BPON interoperability.

While a great deal of worthwhile work was done, BPON interoperability did not fully realize the ‘Lego blocks’ goal. Instead of full interoperability the results were more limited. Discrete pairs of BPON suppliers interoperated, but often they required customized software loads for each optical line terminal (OLT)/optical network terminal (ONT) pairing.

Filed under: Technology and Standards
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PMC-Sierra Intros China-Ready EPON FTTH Chips

Posted on 12.05.06

PMC-Sierra (through its Passave acquisition) has announced the availability of the industry’s first EPON optical network unit (ONU) and optical line terminal (OLT) silicon devices that support China Telecom defined algorithms and features for the Chinese telecom market.

Filed under: Technology and Standards
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AT&T Chooses HomePNA Premises Wiring Standard over MOCA

Posted on 08.28.06

AT&T has announced that it has chosen the HomePNA 3.0 in-home broadband distribution standard over the MOCA standard that Verizon has chosen to utilize. The HomePNA standard is approved by the International Telecommunications Union and is capable if distributing broadband signals over both phone and coax cable lines. The MoCA standard developed by the industry sponsored Multimedia over Coax Alliance only used coax cable lines inside the premises for broadband signal distribution.

Filed under: Standards
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Parts 3 and 4 of Nyquist Condition China FTTH Series

Posted on 06.21.06

Andrew Schmitt, publisher of the Nyquist Condition blog has recently posted parts 3 and 4 of his series of articles on FTTH in China. Part 3 deals extensively on the choice between GPON and GEPON technologies for Chinese carriers. Based on component availability, cost, maturity, and flexibility it is Andrew’s opinion that GEPON will prevail in China. At the end of part 3 and in part 4 of the series, information is presented to Chinese efforts to extend the IEEE 803.3ah GEPON standard to a new flavor called "CPON". Apparently, a closed door meeting was held recently in China where US and Chinese chip vendors and Chinese equipment companies discussed this extension to the standard.

"Note the total absence of any Western or Japanese equipment suppliers. China Telecom is clearly motivated to source the supply of FTTH equipment domestically."

The proposed modifications are then discussed in the post. This should be an interesting thread to follow.

Filed under: Technology and Standards
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New FTTH Generic Requirement from Telcordia

Posted on 01.18.06

Telcordia Technologies has issued a new generic requirement titled "GR-3126-CORE, Generic Requirements for Wall Plates, Moldings, and Raceways that Support Fiber Optic Services (Including Fiber to the Premises [FTTP])".

GR-3126 provides mechanical, environmental, and optical performance requirements for wall plates, moldings, and raceways used in FTTP deployments. This document allows the industry to have a clear set of requirements that will
reduce costs and provide long-lasting reliable products to support FTTP deployment.

Filed under: Standards
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More Expensive APD Receiver to be Used in GPON According to New FSAN Standard Update

Posted on 12.07.05

FSAN is the body that writes GPON standards. This very informative update on the latest FSAN meeting (Nov. 2005, Tokyo) by Dr. David Cleary of Optical Solutions describes the contention on how to satisfy power budget number for a passive optical network with a 20 Km reach with 32 splits. In the end it was decided to that the more sensitive Avalanche Photodiode detectors are to be used at the premises rather than having a higher power signal at the optical line terminal. As pointed out by a reader, this decision has three twists:

-APD detectors are more expensive than the PIN detectors that were considered for the second alternative. This increases the cost of GPON ONU’s in comparison with EPON.
-The decision to use higher sensitivity detectors instead of higher transmission power was probably taken to satisfy Verizon’s requirement that a separate Video over RF wavelength is available for GPON. If a higher power transmitter is used, Stimulated Raman Scattering would create too much optical noise to provision a video over RF wavelength.
-The power budgets were calculated for a 32 split PON. What are the contingencies for the promised 64 split PON?

Filed under: Standards
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Fiberxon and Teknovus Partnership

Posted on 11.07.05

Fiberxon, a supplier of Optics for the PON market, and Teknovus, a provider of Ethernet Passive Optical Network (EPON) chipsets for the deployment of IPTV in broadband access networks, have announced the formation of a strategic partnership to interface Teknovus’ TK37xx family of EPON chips with the Fiberxon’s GEPON OLT and ONU transceivers.

The formation of the plug-and-play ecosystem for components and subsystems seems to be progressing a lot faster for GEPON than for GPON thus giving GEPON an increased cost advantage.

Filed under: Business and Standards
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UTSTARCOM’S TAKE ON ADVANTAGES OF GEPON

Posted on 11.01.05

The controversy over the implementation costs of GPON vs. GEPON rages on. The latest salvo has been fired by Bill Huang, CTO of UTStarcom (a telecom equipment manufacturer, GEPON terminals included). According to the article:

Whereas early ATM-based PON deployments factored out several thousand dollars per subscriber, carriers can now deploy GEPON for well under $500 per subscriber. Lower costs, in turn, reduce the overall capital expenditure a carrier incurs when transitioning to a high-bandwidth PON architecture.

Even though Bill emphasizes that "early" ATM-based PON deployments (i.e. BPON) are several thousand dollars per subscriber, the implication here is that GEPON is still less expensive to deploy than GPON.

The article goes on to describe the advantages of deploying VoIP and IPTV over GEPON and then delves into GEPON for business (which I presume will be a big market opportunity for PON):

Corporate CIOs are discovering the cost savings of VOIP, which comes with little or no sacrifice in voice quality or reliability. Videoconferencing too has a natural synergy with GEPON, taking advantage of the 1 Gbps symmetric line rate. With GEPON, CIOs can finally collapse their individual T1s for PBX, corporate WAN, and Internet access, as well as their legacy ISDN BRIs for corporate videoconferencing, onto an optical Ethernet link provided by a cutting-edge service provider.

Filed under: Business and Technology and Standards
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SALIRA ANNOUNCES A IEEE 802.3AH COMPLIANT GE-PON PLATFORM

Posted on 10.13.05

Salira, which was recently acquired by Hitachi, has announced a new GE-PON FTTH platform that is compliant with IEEE 802.3ah Ethernet in the First Mile standards. I believe they are the second GE-PON vendor (after the Wave7 Optics Trident7 platform) to be standards compliant. I believe Alloptic, the other US based GE-PON platform vendor has not yet announced IEEE 802.3ah compatibility. Presumably, standards compliance is a strong selling point. Two take-away points from this announcement:

-Hitachi (the owner) becomes the second vendor to have both GPON and GEPON capability, although not in the same platform like Wave7

- On its website Salira states about its EPON platform: The product has since been commercially deployed by numerous customers in Asia, particularly in China which implies that its marketing strategy is focused on Asia-Pacific and that its main competitor is Alloptic (which has also announced AP customers).

Filed under: Technology and Standards
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Hitachi Joins Multimedia over Coax Alliance

Posted on 09.08.05

Hitachilogo Hitachi, the Japanese electronics giant and a leading provider of FTTP equipment in Japan, has joined the Multimedia over Coax Alliance (MoCA). This organization aims to converge and standardaze all in-house telecom wiring to coax cable. So no matter over what medium the telecommunications services are delivered to the residence, inside the house it will be all coax cable.

Filed under: Standards
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3M Achieves Verizon Accreditation

Posted on 09.01.05

3mlogo The 3M Communication Markets Division laboratory has achieved Verizon
accreditation for independent Passive Fiber Optic Component (PFOC)
testing through Telcordia Technologies. The accreditation allows 3M
labs to test and certify PFOC products from 3M to ensure that they meet
Verizon and industry standards. 3M is certified by Verizon to test
GR-326 connectors, GR-2866 fanouts and GR-771 closures and terminals
used to deploy its Fiber to the Premises (FTTP) networks.

Filed under: Standards
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Telcordia Forming the Hardened Optic Connector Interoperability Forum

Posted on 08.30.05

Telcordia_small_3 In its Digest Plus print publication Telcordia Technologies has announced the formation of the Telcordia Forming the Hardened Optic Connector (HFOC) Interoperability Forum. Since there is no online version, I will quote from the announcement. You can subscribe to the print version here.

"To0 address concerns regarding interoperability of HFOC products from different manufacturers, Telcordia is planning to form an HFOC forum. The goal of hte Forum is to help members determine if their products are interoperable with one another’s HFOCs, in closures, terminals, drop cables, etc."…"As members join the Forum, their products will be tested for interoperability with other members’ products (or an appropriate test suite and Telcordia will indicate which HFOCs are interoperable with each other." Contact: Ernie Gallo, 1.732.699.3312, egallo@telcordia.com

Filed under: Standards
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Recent Work on the GPON Standard

Posted on 08.29.05

Fsan_1 FSAN is a comittee formed by the International Telecommunications Union to evolve the GPON (gigabit passive optical network) standard. This update on the Optical Solutions website details the recent issues that the FSAN has been dealing with in preparation for the next standard update.
Also a GPON interoperability event was detailed: "A formal, two-day GPON interoperability event will be held at the end
of the year to give both chip vendors and system vendors a chance to
test GPON implementations in FPGA before going out to ASIC fabrication."

Filed under: Standards
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Teknovus Completes Standards Compliance Testing

Posted on 08.11.05

Teknovus_1 Teknovus "today announced another industry first with the completion of
third-party IEEE 802.3ah standards compliance testing for two Teknovus
Gigabit EPON (GEPON) chipsets that are used in the deployment of
triple-play communications, which includes the simultaneous delivery of
IPTV/video, data, and voice. According to Dr. Rex Naden, CEO for
Teknovus, a series of standards compliance tests were conducted by the
prestigious University of New Hampshire InterOperability Laboratory
(UNH-IOL)."

I don’t have a good gauge on how significant this is or if Teknovus competitor Passave is undergoing compliance testing. Does anyone have comments?

Filed under: Standards
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New “Generic Requirement” for Connectors from Telcordia

Posted on 07.06.05

Telcordia_small_2 Telcordia has released a new generic requirement for hardened fiber optic connectors for FTTx deployments. These GRs are serve as guidelines for evaluation of products. Here’s part of the description:

"Fiber To The Premise (FTTP) technology is evolving to the point where the need
is arising for new products to support the FTTP roll out and services. In an effort to help service providers and equipment vendors evaluate the new products and lay the framework for FTTP, Telcordia has published a series of new or updated GRs that reflect the Telcordia view of requirements needed to support FTTP deployment and service offerings.

GR-3120-CORE, Issue 1, Generic Requirements for Hardened Fiber Optic Connectors (HFOCs), contains all new requirements for connectors that are field-mateable and hardened for use in the outside plant. These requirements are needed to support FTTP deployment and service offerings."

Filed under: Standards
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New Standard for Fiber Optic Enclosures

Posted on 05.02.05

Tia_logo1 Click here on the latest news about new standards additions describing the telecom enclosure space and cabling (TIA/EIA-568B.1 Addendum 5, TIA/EIA-569B). These standards define how a telecom enclosures interfacing fiber to copper cabling should look like. Standardization is a key driver for reduced costs and interoperability.

Filed under: Standards
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Progress on GPON Interoperability

Posted on 04.10.05

Fsan The Gigabit Passive Optical Network set of standards (G.984.1, G.984.2) were approved by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) in 2004. Since this is a relatively recent event, a lot of interoperability issues still need to be resolved. To this end the Full Service Access Network (FSAN) has been very active.
To quote from their website "The Full Service Access Network (FSAN) Group is a forum for the
world’s leading telecommunications services providers and equipment
suppliers to work towards a common goal of truly broadband access
networks.The Mission of FSAN is to drive applicable standards, where they
already exist, into the services and products in the industry, while
simultaneously advanced its own specifications into the appropriate standards bodies to provide further definition to the Full Service Access Network."
Recently at the FSAN meeting in Kansas City, a Common Technical Specification group was established "to identify the broadest common system specification consensus based on the GPON standard series (ITU-T G.984.x)". Read all about it on the FSAN news page.

Filed under: Standards
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New Requirement Published by Telcordia

Posted on 04.05.05

Telcordia_small Telcordia Technologies has just published a new industry requirement titled "Generic Requirements for Hardened Fiber Optic Connectors". This requirement provides details of what is required for a hardened fiber optic connector used in the outside plant. Here’s a brief summary from their website.
GR-3120-CORE, Issue 1, Generic Requirements for Hardened Fiber Optic Connectors (HFOCs), contains all new requirements for connectors that are field-mateable and hardened for use in the outside plant. These requirements are needed to support FTTP deployment and service offerings.
An extended table of contents in .pdf format is also provided.

Filed under: Standards
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Optical Solutions Concerned about Interoperability

Posted on 02.15.05

Opticalsolutions_1 Optical Solutions announced today the formation of a partner program to ensure interoperability of equipment from different vendors used in gigabit passive optical networks (GPON). This issue is obviously of concern to Optical Solutions especially in the light of the recent acquisition of Vinci Systems by Tellabs. The concern is highlighted by the fact that a link to the article in Telephony Magazine dealing with this issue was posted in the news section of Optical Solutions website. As the number of PON and FTTH vendors in general proliferate, this will surely be a continuing thread in the future.

Filed under: Standards
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