AT&T boost for 25GS-PON MSA Group
March 4, 2021
Trade body the 25GS-PON MSA Group, which brings together major operators along with leading system and component vendors to promote and accelerate the development and deployment of 25 Gigabit Symmetrical Passive Optical Network (25GS-PON) technology, has added seven new member companies including AT&T, CommScope, Cortina Access, Feneck, HiLight Semiconductor, Hisense Broadband and Semtech.
These companies, along with the ten founding 25GS-PON MSA members, are enabling a move beyond the limitations of 10 Gb/s next-generation PON, the current state-of-the-art.
The 25GS-PON MSA was first announced on October 8th, 2020 with the goal of promoting and accelerating the development of 25GS-PON technology. Since its formation, the 25GS-PON MSA Group has published version 1.0 of the 25 Gigabit Symmetrical Passive Optical Network specification, providing the basis for how 25GS-PON should be implemented to ensure basic functionality and interoperability across different vendors. The founding members of the 25GS-PON MSA Group include AOI, Chorus, Chunghwa Telecom, Ciena, MACOM, MaxLinear, NBN , Nokia, Sumitomo Electric Industries, Ltd, and Tibit Communications.
There are several performance and efficiency-driven demands propelling the market toward 25GS-PON. The first is for 5G wireless networks, which will require three to ten times greater density than 4G. 25GS-PON is extremely well suited to support xHaul transport for 5G’s increased cell density and capacity requirements. With 25GS-PON, operators can leverage their existing fibre networks to significantly reduce both the cost and time required to bring up 5G services, ultimately delivering better services to consumers.
Another factor driving 25GS-PON is enterprises’ growing reliance on high-performance applications, including cloud computing big data applications, artificial intelligence and machine learning. 25GS-PON can deliver true 10 Gb/s symmetrical services. Because 25GS-PON leverages mature, high-volume data centre optical technology, it can be implemented quickly and cost efficiently. The first 25GS-PON products have been announced, and analysts anticipate the first trials this year, with deployments in 2022.
“The addition of such a wide range of network operators, equipment vendors, and component suppliers to the 25GS-PON MSA is evidence of the technology’s importance for 5G xHaul and enterprise services,” said Jeff Heynen, Vice President, Broadband Access and Home Networking for Dell’Oro Group. “25G PON’s ability to co-exist with XGS-PON and reuse existing fibre plant makes it extremely attractive to operators around the world.”