Nokia and Proximus turned on what they call the world’s fastest fibre access network at a media event in Antwerp attended by the Belgian Minister of Telecommunications, the Mayor of Antwerp and executives and engineers from the two companies. Operating over existing fibre and Nokia equipment deployed in the Proximus network, the first ever 25G PON live network connects the Havenhuis building in the Port of Antwerp with the Proximus central office in the middle of the city. The network speed exceeded 20 Gbps, making it the fastest fibre network in the world, the companies said.
Proximus is accelerating the move to fibre, adding 10 percent coverage each year and is on target to at least 70 percent of homes and business covered by 2028. As part of its inspire 2022 vision, it's creating a high-capacity open network available to all operators.
Nokia’s 25G PON platform uses the world’s first implementation of 25GS-PON technology and includes Lightspan access nodes, 25G/10G optical cards and fiber modems. Proximus is its first major customer for the technology, which is still in the testing phase and should become fully available next year.
Nokia Lightspan FX and MX are high-capacity access nodes for massive scale fibre roll-outs. Usually located in telecom central office, they connect thousands of users via optical fibre, aggregate their broadband traffic and send it deeper in the network. The fibre access nodes can support multiple fibre technologies including GPON, XGS-PON, 25GS-PON and Point-to-Point Ethernet to deliver l wide range of services with the best fit technology.
Nokia ONT (Optical Network Termination) devices, or fibre modems, are located at the user location. They terminate the optical fibre connection and delivers broadband services within the user premises or cell sites.
Quillion chipset
Nokia supplied PON line cards with the Quillion chipset, which can handle 25 Gbps. The chipset can grow with gradual updates on an operator's network. Nokia is already shipping the technology to 100 customers worldwide. The next step 100G, is on trial.
PON (Passive Optical Networking) eliminates the need for active equipment on the connection, between the control panel and the end user's network connection point. On the last mile, there is system of optical splitters that breaks the light signal into different wavelengths. This means the 25G connection can be shared by up to 32 households. Since end users do not constantly use the full connection, a high bandwidth per connection is still achievable.
