Australia’s NBN Co has announced the successful completion of a field trial with vendor partner Nokia, in which the pair used three generations of passive optical network (PON) technologies – GPON, XGS PON and 25GS PON – over the former’s fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) network. During the trial, NBN Co and Nokia were reportedly able to achieve symmetrical speeds of 8Gbps on XGS PON and 20Gbps on 25GS PON, with the latter claimed to be ‘a new Australian record for a passive optical network’.
According to NBN Co, the successful in-field trial demonstrated that the fibre in its network is capable of supporting the next generation of broadband services of XGS PON and 25GS PON, whilst maintaining current active services on existing GPON fibre technology. With the company suggesting the trial represented an ‘important step’ in delivering its long-term network strategy, NBN Co’s chief network office Dion Ljubanovic was cited as saying: ‘This successful trial shows us that the performance of the fibre we deploy in our fixed line footprint is limited only by the capabilities of equipment connected to it – as new solutions become available, we can introduce them to increase the capabilities and speeds we can offer on the network.’