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Nortel, LG-Nortel unveil first-to-market WDM-PON solution at BBWF
Today as part of the Broadband World Forum (BBWF) event in Brussels, Nortel and LG-Nortel today unveiled a new Ethernet Access solution based on WDM-PON technology. The solution is globally available now, and today’s news also included the announcement of a new service provider customer for the solution in the Netherlands — UNET.
WDM-PON is a “first mile” technology (or “last mile” depending on your perspective), which is the part of the network closest to the customer that actually connects the service provider network to the end home or business. Like other PON technologies (Passive Optical Network), WDM-PON uses fiber (instead of traditional copper lines) to provide high-speed access. But unlike other PON technologies (GPON, EPON, BPON) that have many end-users share the bandwidth of a fiber connection, WDM-PON uses wavelength division muliplexing (WMD) to give each home or business its own independent optical wavelength.
While WDM is common in carrier core optical networks today, it is brand new for the access portion of the network. In fact, while other vendors this week at BBWF are talking about trying to accelerate their WDM-PON solution availability, Nortel and LG-Nortel are first-to-market with a WDM-PON solution that is globally available today.
UNET, a multi-service provider in the Netherlands, is working with Nortel to deploy WDM-PON to further take advantage of UNET’s substantial existing fiber network in the country. Targeting homes and businesses across the country, UNET plans to offer high-bandwidth applications such as IPTV - including HDTV - and emerging applications such as multimedia conferencing, and even online karaoke sessions. Phased rollout of these services is expected to begin in the next few months.
While this new WDM-PON solution is being unveiled today, the technology behind it has been in-the-works for quite some time. LG-Nortel has been involved with WDM-PON trials for 18 months. In fact, LG-Nortel has already worked with a service provider in Korea to deploy over 150,000 WDM-PON lines. LG-Nortel also recently acquired Novera Optics, and the two had worked closely together before then on WDM-PON technology and the deployment in Korea.
Many in the industry consider WDM-PON the “end game” for network access. WDM-PON enables network speeds starting at 100Mbps, scalable up to 1,000Mbps. And since WDM-PON provides each home with dedicated bandwidth, that 100Mbps+ of speed doesn’t have to be shared with the rest of the neighborhood. WDM-PON also provides equal upload and download speeds (unlike technologies like DSL which have much slower upload speeds), which better supports the coming of new interactive games and applications where the end user is just as likely to be sending loads of content as receiving it.
