Australia's NBN Co announced the successful completion of a field trial with vendor partner Nokia. The trial utilised three generations of passive optical network (PON) technologies - GPON, XGS PON, and 25GS PON - over its Fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) network. NBN Co reported a successful trial in which it concurrently tested multi-gigabit technologies on the same fibre within its live network. This trial achieved symmetric speeds of 20 Gbps on 25GS PON.
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Testing XGS PON and 25GS PON
NBN Co further explained that this successful in-field trial demonstrates the capability of the fibre in the nbn network to support the next generation of broadband services, including XGS PON and 25GS PON, while still maintaining current active services on the existing GPON fibre technology.
nbn said, "This successful trial shows us that the performance of the fibre we deploy in our fixed line footprint is limited only by the capabilities of equipment connected to it - as new solutions become available, we can introduce them to increase the capabilities and speeds we can offer on the network."
Growing Data Usage
"We now have around 775,000 homes on the nbn network using more than a terabyte of data per month, which has grown by more than 30 per cent in the last year alone. As we plan and begin to deliver upgrades in the network now for the demand we expect to see in five, 10 or 20 years' time, trials like this are so important," nbn stated.
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This marks the first instance where nbn has demonstrated its fibre capabilities in the field, as previous testing was conducted in a lab setting. During the field trial, nbn and Nokia reportedly achieved symmetrical speeds of 8 Gbps on XGS PON and 20 Gbps on 25GS PON, setting a new Australian record for a passive optical network.
