Nokia announces gen 6 broadband platform
October 17, 2022
Nokia has unveiled its Generation 6 broadband platform, designed for a ‘fibre-for-everything’ world where fibre broadband networks evolve to become a single infrastructure for all services. The new Lightspan MF-14 platform extends the upper end of Nokia’s fibre broadband portfolio and will be premiered at the Network X event in Amsterdam from October 18th to 20th.
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. This new broadband era, designated Broadband 6 by the World Broadband Association (WBBA), requires a new technical solution. Nokia’s Lightspan MF-14 is the first Gen 6 optical line terminal (OLT) and has already been selected by customers building 25 Gb/second capable networks in Europe, North America and Asia Pacific.
Geert Heyninck, Nokia’s VP Broadband Networks, said: “Fibre-to-the-home is becoming fibre-for-everything. This is enabled by several technology advances, most notably higher speed PON technologies to accommodate all new services, and SDN to bring more intelligence in the network. If you think about it, the massive number of connection points on fibre make it a challenge to get an instant view of everything that happens in your network, fully automate network control, and perform actions with no service interruption. Our current portfolio is doing an excellent job in supporting many of these requirements for today’s and tomorrow’s services, but we are looking ahead. The MF-14 platform will suit operators who are planning large scale 25G PON, 50G and even 100G PON within the same environment.”
Nokia says MF-14 is the highest capacity platform in the industry and the only solution ready for mass delivery of 25G, 50G and 100G PON services. It’s also the industry’s first OLT with the six-nines availability and sub-millisecond latency needed for mission critical industry 4.0 and 5G transport services.
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 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.”
Meanwhile, Nokia and AIS Fibre have announced the first trial of its 25G PON solution in Asia. AIS Fibre in Thailand trialled the technology using its existing optical line terminals (OLT), which has already been rolled out nationwide. The OLT was connected simultaneously to three end user devices with a combined speed of 37.5 Gb/s using a 25G PON optical network terminal (ONT) at 25 Gb/s, an XGS-PON ONT at 10 Gb/s and a G PON ONT at 2.5 Gb/s. All services can be served with the same, single fibre at the same time.
Thanit Chaiyaboonthanit, Acting Managing Director of Fixed Broadband at AIS, said: “AIS Fibre prioritises innovation that will provide the best services to our customers, and gives us network technology which meets users’ future needs in terms of both speed and flexibility. This partnership with Nokia to trial 25G PON technology has yielded favourable results, inspiring us to believe that we can deploy it in the future.”
Ajay Sharma, Head of Thailand and Cambodia at Nokia, added: “With enhanced speeds provided by 25G PON, fiber networks are evolving into being able to connect everything, everywhere. They play an important role in delivering any service to any end point, including residences, businesses, and cell sites. We are proud to have been part of this important milestone.”