Australia’s nbn trials Nokia’s universal GPON tech

Australia’s nbn, the company in charge of rolling out the National Broadband Network, has achieved 102Gbps aggregate speeds during a lab trial of Nokia’s universal NG-PON fiber technology.

Universal NG-PON (next-generation passive optical network) combines TWDM-PON (time wavelength division multiplexing PON), XGS-PON (10 gigabit symmetrical PON) and GPON (gigabit PON) technology on the same fiber to support blazing fast speeds.

It is designed to serve as a simple upgrade path to the current fiber technology used in FTTP deployments, saving the time and additional costs associated with laying new fiber.

During the trial at Nokia’s Melbourne laboratory, nbn tested TWDM-PON with 40Gbps symmetrical, XGS-PON with 10Gbps symmetrical and GPON with 2.5Gbps, achieving aggregate download and upload speeds of over 102Gbps over a single shared access fiber.

“Our successful trial of NG-PON2 technology with Nokia is another example of our ongoing commitment to continually develop the capabilities and speed of the nbn network,” nbn CTO Dennis Steiger said.

“While we continue to deploy the nbn network at pace with over 2 million end-users now receiving nbn services and nearly 5 million able to order a service, we also have a very sharp focus on the future. The NG-PON2 trials we have conducted with Nokia have shown us the huge potential this very exciting technology has in terms of helping us deliver on our future bandwidth and capacity requirements.”

But the current government’s decision to abandon the previous government’s plan to use FTTP for around 93% of connections, in favor of a multi-technology mix incorporating last-mile copper technology purchased from incumbent operator Telstra, complicates the potential upgrade path to the new technology.