The industry is entering a ‘fibre-for-everything’ era. Once operators have deployed fibre-to-the-home, their networks pass every other building in the street, as well as the homes, meaning they can connect businesses and other services. Fibre PON will be capable of supporting high bandwidth consumer services, industry 4.0 applications, business connectivity, 5G transport and smart city services, Ana Pesovic, Marketing Director, Fixed Networks at Nokia told TelecomTalk in an exlcusive interaction.
Q1. How is Nokia innovating in fibre technologies and solutions?
Nokia has a long history of fibre innovations, from the first GPON to 10G PON and 25G PON. We are major contributors to the 50G standard and were the first to demonstrate a 100G demo. Our chipset Quillion was designed for energy efficiency, lower latency and 3 generations of PONs on a single line card enabling smooth evolution. We were also first with 5G backhaul over PON. We also have introduced the highest capacity platform, the Lightspan MF-14, ready for the new fibre-for-everything era where fibre broadband networks additionally support smart cities, business services and mobile backhaul.
Q2. Are the customers happy with the trials of the Nokia Lightspan MF-14? If Yes, what is it that makes the solution a good fit for your customers?
Key benefits for customers:
- Start with the premium platform today and avoid hardware migration for decades
- Be ahead of the competition and get more revenues with new services (IND 4.0, 5G x-haul, wholesale)
- Excel in network operation efficiency with automated operations, fast telemetry, agile software upgrades
- Reduce power bill and be ahead of sustainability targets
Frontier Communications, the first in the U.S. to trial 25G PON, is also the first to evaluate MF-14 in its live network. Frontier’s Scott Mispagel, SVP of National Architecture and Engineering, said: “We are proud to be the first to embrace this next-generation platform. This is another way for us to provide customers with the fastest broadband available. The MF-14 platform will support our path to 100G using our existing fibre network and future-proof our network with speeds that will continue to outpace cable and other technologies for generations to come.”
In July this year CityFibre – the UK’s largest independent full fibre infrastructure platform – signed a 10-year equipment agreement to support its nationwide network upgrade. John Franklin, CTIO, CityFibre said: “As we accelerate our full fibre rollout to serve a third of the UK market by 2025, the demand placed on those networks will also accelerate. MF-14’s flexibility and capacity will help us to meet the needs of our partner’s and their customers for generations to come.”
Q3. With 5G rolling out across the world, the need for fiberisation will be at an all-time high to serve the backhaul needs of operators. Are you ready to serve the growing demand?
We see the opportunity. At the moment, sub-6-GHz 5G is being deployed at 4G sites, with the existing transport network being upgraded to meet new capacity requirements. However, as 5G moves to faster millimetre-wave deployments and, hence, fulfils the promise of (multi-) gigabit services, new cell sites will be needed. We call this the densification of a 5G network.
These new sites will first pop up in urban and suburban environments, and each of them will require additional transport capabilities. This is exactly where fibre networks already exist, which makes PON networks a cost-effective and operationally efficient choice. The ideal way to connect those mobile sites is through a small form factor pluggable (SFP) optical network terminal (ONT) that is plugged into the mobile base stations. While XGS-PON has sufficient bandwidth for backhaul and mid-haul, greater capacity is needed in areas with higher cell density or throughput. This capacity can be delivered by 25G PON today and 50G in the future.
Q4. What's the goal for Nokia in the fibre solutions market globally?
The industry is entering a ‘fibre-for-everything’ era. Once operators have deployed fibre-to-the-home, their networks pass every other building in the street, as well as the homes, meaning they can connect businesses and other services. Fibre PON will be capable of supporting high bandwidth consumer services, industry 4.0 applications, business connectivity, 5G transport and smart city services. This creates more revenue opportunities, lowers TCO and significantly reduces overall power consumption.
