22 February 2017, Shenzhen, China – ZTE Corporation (0763.HK / 000063.SZ), a major international provider of telecommunications, enterprise and consumer technology solutions for the Mobile Internet, today announced the completion of the commercial trial of its Combo passive optical network (PON) solution in two local networks in Changzhou and Yancheng, in east China’s Jiangsu province. The trial was undertaken jointly with the China Telecom Jiangsu branch and the China Telecom Beijing Research Institute.

The commercial trial leveraged the in-service optical line terminations (OLTs) and innovative Combo PON cards to connect the legacy optical distribution network (ODN) and the X=10, G=Gigabit PON optical network units (XG-PON ONUs) and GPON ONUs under the same Combo PON port. ZTE’s Combo PON solution inherits the system and flow of the carrier’s existing element management system (EMS), operations support systems (OSS) and resource management system, and makes minor alterations to the attributes as well as performance statistics and alarm of the newly-added Combo PON cards. Meanwhile, it leverages its industry-first XG-PON smart gateway to provide a 1,000Mbps connection speed, premium voice, 4K Internet protocol TV (IPTV) and smart home services to users. The existing GPON fibre to the home (FTTH) ONUs are migrated under the Combo PON port, and inherit the existing integrated terminal management system (ITMS) flow to implement automatic distribution and provision of FTTH services, achieving the interoperability with the GPON ONTs from multiple vendors. The success of the commercial trial indicates that ZTE’s Combo PON solution can move from the lab research stage to the application stage - a solid step of ZTE and China Telecom in Combo PON commercialisation.

The migration from FTTH to 10G PON is inevitable in order to deliver 1000Mbps broadband to premises in China. The problem of achieving compatibility between 10G PON and the existing Ethernet PON (EPON)/GPON CO equipment, as well as the massive ONUs in user premises, smooth network migration implementation, preserving carriers’ investments and reducing engineering difficulty still need to be fully considered and solved. Due to the native feature of combining 10G EPON and EPON terminals under the PON port, 10G EPON has taken the lead in large-scale network upgrades. As a 10G GPON port only supports connecting 10G GPON ONUs and does not support connecting GPON ONUs, the compatibility and coexistence of 10G GPON and GPON requires wavelength combination. The traditional external multiplexer solution needs to plan, construct and maintain both 10G GPON and GPON equipment and cards. It needs more footprints of racks and equipment rooms, brings additional 1.5dB insertion loss, and requires the existing ODN to reserve a redundant optical power of approximately 3dB, which limits its applications. In comparison, the Combo PON solution is more advantageous because it does not require additional spaces, does not incur insertion loss or ODN transformation, and supports flexible access and compatibility of 10G PON ONUs and GPON ONUs.

ZTE has long been an innovator and leader in 10G PON technology and solutions, and retains the world’s leading position by 10G PON market share. In February 2016, ZTE unveiled the industry’s first Combo PON solution based on the hybrid GPON and XG-PON optical transceiver module. In June 2016, ZTE’s Combo PON solution was tested at the China Telecom Shanghai Research Institute. The successful commercial trial of ZTE’s Combo PON solution at China Telecom Jiangsu Branch sets the industry on a trend and helps China Telecom retain its leading position in the 1000Mbps fibre era.