18 February 2016, Shenzhen, China – ZTE Corporation (0763.HK / 000063.SZ), a major international provider of telecommunications, enterprise and consumer technology solutions for the Mobile Internet, will unveil its COMBO PON (passive optical network) solution based on one integrated GPON/XG-PON1 (gigabit optical network/next generation passive optical networks) optical module at the GSMA Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

ZTE’s COMBO PON solution meets the current demand for bandwidth in fixed networks, to maximise space, minimise network changes and maintain original operation and maintenance standards. It helps customers to achieve a smooth migration to XG-PON1 from GPON, eliminating a series of problems associated with upgrading to XG-PON1. Maintaining the same PON port density, operators are able to save 60 percent more space than when incorporating an external solution, and 24 percent of the equipment costs.

With the rapid development of high-bandwidth services, many operators have chosen to upgrade GPON to XG-PON1 to cope with increasingly strenuous bandwidth pressure. The upgrade from GPON to XG-PON1 utilises an external wavelength division multiplexing filter (WDM1r) box to combine both GPON and XG-PON1 optical signals for operational delivery networks (ODNs). Such solutions require the input of a new XG-PON1 OLT chassis, XG-PON1 line cards, cabinets, external co-wave devices and related computer room facilities. This results in high construction costs, requires excessive floor space, and causes difficulty for the operation and maintenance of fiber optic cabling.

ZTE’s COMBO PON coexists with GPON and XG-PON1 as dual-channels within the same optical module, reusing old GPON OLT chassis, based on the new COMBO PON board to replace the original board. The COMBO PON port is connected to the corresponding original GPON fiber network to realise the combination of GPON and 10G PON, reusing the original ODN network.

ZTE has been committed to the innovation of products and solutions in this area to create customer value. This latest COMBO PON product provides a solution to heavy deployment costs and complex networking challenges through XG-PON1 migration.

Recently the world's leading advisory body, OVUM, released the 2015 third quarter global market share of fixed-line product report "Market Share Report: 3Q15 FTTx, DSL, and CMTS". The report shows that: in the global fixed access products and PON markets, ZTE’s market share is ranked second. ZTE ranked number one for EPON shipments. For sales and shipment volumes for GPON ONT/ONU in South and Central America, ZTE ranked first.