Nokia has deployed its Altiplano Open Access solution to American Tower’s fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) infrastructure in Argentina. The network controller allows American Tower to lease fiber to operator tenants in the country.
Three virtual network operator tenants have already signed on to use American Tower’s wholesale fiber. Nokia is the sole supplier for the new FTTH network, which the companies said has reached close to one million passings.
Altiplano Open Access, powered by Nokia’s Altiplano Access Controller cloud platform, uses a neutral host to share network resources as slices of a physical network. Operators can set up fiber networks as-a-service, without owning the physical infrastructure.
Essentially, Altiplano Open Access relies on active layer network sharing, Filip De Greve, product marketing director for Nokia’s fixed networks division, told Fierce.
Though Nokia initially deployed the technology in South America – where De Greve says there’s a high interest in open access networks – Altiplano Open Access is available worldwide.
He explained that one infrastructure provider lays the fiber, installs the network equipment and connects the homes. That provider allows multiple ISPs to share the network infrastructure and run services via bitstream, virtual unbundled local access (VULA) or fixed access network sharing for end users.
A key component is a cloud-native software defined networking controller for the FTTH network, De Greve added. A controller with a slicing engine, open APIs and a common data lake can support a “virtually unlimited” number of virtual access networks and network tenants.
Sandy Motley, Nokia’s president of fixed networks, noted in a statement “neutral host business models lower the cost of fiber deployments and attract new sources of capital, driving the FTTH market to enter underserved areas.”
Altiplano Open Access is a step up from traditional fiber wholesale solutions, which lack flexibility in the level of visibility and control tenants get, De Greve continued. When infrastructure and service operations aren’t fully isolated, it restricts service innovation and increases operational costs.
“Whereas an SDN network can easily isolate a virtual portion of the physical network with an open API that allows wholesalers to tune offering to tenant needs,” he said. For instance, operators can more easily access network components like service health, performance metrics and network alarms.
Altiplano Open Access can also benefit operators who want to leverage their existing IT tools, De Greve noted. They can create their own service design and northbound interface integration within the wholesaler’s assigned network slice, “and control the virtual access network like it was a physically owned asset.”
Nokia is seeing steady gains in its fixed networks business, touting a 7% growth rate in the third quarter. Though the company noted enterprise was its strongest growing segment.