ZTE Previews Prototype of the World's First 10G EPON Equipment

(Top News, 12 Nov 2008)

ZTE Corp. has rolled out the prototype of what is said to be the world's first 10G EPON network equipment including related system services. The ZXA10 C220 and MDU prototype equipment are unified platforms designed for EPON, 10G EPON and GPON networks. Designed based in connection with current trends to enable to smooth upgrade for xPON networks, the terminal equipment has high volume and advance backplane architecture that is expected to greatly enhance bandwidth and services access capability.

10G EPON is an IEEE Task Force for 10Gbps backwards compatible with 802.3ah EPON and uses separate wavelengths for 10G and 1G downstream. It is also fully compatible with existing ODN (optical distribution network) and EPON equipment networks and has trunk access bandwidth 10 times that of the current EPON networks. 10G EPON greatly improves access bandwidth and triples services support, as well as enables operators to easily upgrade from 1G EPON to 10G EPON, thus significantly improving EPON network performance.

ZTE actively participates in various standards giving organizations, including the editorial board that sets the IEEE 802.3av 10G EPON standard. It spends significant amount of time to contribute in the formulation and improvement of 10G EPON standards. Meanwhile, early this year, Glen Kramer, Chairman of the IEEE "10G EPON" Working Group, announced that the 10G EPON draft for the EPON next-generation standard has been completed. It is expected to be formulated in 2009 and officially released by middle of the year. According to a White Paper on 10G EPON published by the Ethernet Alliance, both IEEE and ITU-T are committed to conduct more research on next-generation optical access systems.

Currently, ZTE has over 200 xPON-related patents. In September 2008, the company introduced a prototype of the world's first total optical wavelength converter-based TDM/WDM hybrid multiplex PON system. This solution is an ideal equipment to solve pressing technical issues related to long-distance optical transmission and large bandwidth demand for optical fiber access networks.

Currently, operators in China have begun to substitute optical fiber with copper wire networks on a large scale. Drawing upon its EPON solution, ZTE has created beta models in Hubei, Anhui, Zhenjiang and Shaanxi in collaboration with local operators to jointly promote the development of the EPON industry. ZTE now has the biggest market share in terms of equipment for copper wire network in China. Its beta model in Hubei is a breakthrough in the replacement of copper cables with optical cables by operators in China. The Zhejiang project has pushed forward an improvement of the backstage support systems for optical cable networks, while both the Anhui and Shaanxi sites have brought the deployment of optical cables to a new height.

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