Broadband Forum, FSAN hold first XGS-PON interoperability plug fest

The Broadband Forum and the Full Service Access Network (FSAN) Group held the first XGS-PON plugfest in Tauxigny, France, marking an initial effort by the vendor community to drive common interfaces and best practices in moving to the next-gen fiber to the premises (FTTP) platform.

Held at LAN’s Digital Applications Laboratory, a number of PON vendors the platform and component sectors including Huawei, Nokia, ZTE, Adtran, Broadcom, Calix, Econet, MT2 and Sagemcom, participated in the event.

Over 30 engineers attended the event with the aim of testing implementation and interoperability. 

RELATED: Verizon, Adtran, Calix and NTT form NG-PON2 forum to promote technology adoption

The Broadband Forum said in a release that the Plugfest extends its work in the field of PON interoperability, building on its G-PON and XG-PON ONU Certification program. It also aims to secure maturity of the ITU-T recommendations and provide a migration path to operators looking for next generation PONs. 

While service provider implementation of NG-PON architectures are still in the embryonic state early, service providers like Verizon are making progress.

In July, Verizon launched an NG-PON2 equipment test in its Innovation Lab in Waltham, Massachusetts.

Following an RFP process after the ITU-T issued the NG-PON2 standard in 2015, the service provider said it will be testing NG-PON2 equipment from Ericsson (in partnership with Calix) and Adtran. Adtran and Ericsson/Calix were chosen out of a group of six vendors that competed in the RFP.

It’s likely Verizon and other telcos that are evaluating next-gen PON technologies will be watching the outcome and the learnings of these plugfests closely.

For Verizon, the value of NG-PON2 technology lies in its ability to support up to 40 Gbps of total capacity and symmetrical 10 Gbps speeds for each customer on a single fiber.

Later, Verizon joined Altice, NTT and Vodafone as well as Tier 1 vendors such as Adtran, Calix and Ericsson to form the NG-PON2 Technology Forum with the aim of promoting the adoption of NG-PON2 broadband technology.

The group, which was established in April, comes at a key time in the development of NG-PON2 as service providers begin trials and standards continue to emerge.