Last February, Orange tested 50G-PON on its fiber optic network. This experiment demonstrated that it was possible to make the three PON technologies coexist.
During the Orange Open Tech Days in November 2023, the incumbent operator told us they were working on 50G-PON. Since then, an experiment was carried out by Orange last February on its fiber optic network.
A coexistence of all generations
If optical fiber is set to last several decades, just like copper, it will experience many changes in the future. If we are all familiar with gigabit fiber (G-PON), it has been updated to 10G-PON which allows you to benefit from a speed of up to 10 Gb/s, in theory, for individuals.
Other technologies are being deployed in France such as 25G-PON but Orange has decided to skip this step and is looking directly at 50G-PON.
The incumbent operator has been a pioneer in this field by supporting the standardization of this generation of Passive Optical Networks (PON) and which allows coexistence with the PON technologies mentioned above.
This coexistence of different technologies was made possible thanks to a specification of the optical spectrum called “US3” which prevents the three generations from overlapping and interacting when they are transmitted in the same fiber, as is already the case. case with the coexistence between G-PON and XGS-PON currently.
The three PON technologies – Orange
Technically, Orange will simply need to change the network card in the OLT (Optical Line Termination) located in the operator’s optical exchanges to connect the customer to one of the offers. The card integrates a Multi-PON-Module (MPM) optical module which includes the three photonic technologies and at the customer’s site, the box will be equipped with the appropriate PON technology according to the subscribed offer.
Orange announces that the commercial offer requiring 50G-PON remains to be defined to offer this connection to end customers, to see if this will remain confined to the business market initially. And this will also benefit mobile networks.
Field tests at 41 Gb/s
Orange has already made its first 50G-PON connections last February in Brittany, more precisely, the operator has an Orange Lab in Lanion.
The experiment was carried out using dedicated 50G-PON equipment on the operational FTTH infrastructure to which other commercial customers are also connected via G-PON and XGS-PON. During this test, Ethernet traffic of more than 41 Gb/s was measured on the client’s link, without other clients noting any change in their connection.
In this case, Orange used a Huawei OLT as it presented to us last year.
L’OLT Huawei
