Nokia and Vodafone Showcase 100 Gigabit Fiber Broadband

Nokia and Vodafone have announced the successful trial of a new Passive Optical Network (PON) technology capable of delivering speeds up to 100 gigabits per second (Gb/s) on a single wavelength 10 times faster than the most advanced networks available today. This marks the latest industry-first in fiber access for Nokia, following breakthroughs in 10G PON, TWDM-PON, universal PON and 25G PON.

The trial, which took place in Vodafone’s Eschborn lab in Germany, is the latest milestone in a long-standing collaboration between Vodafone and Nokia to accelerate the potential of fiber broadband. The demand for broadband connectivity continues to grow exponentially in terms of the service types, number of connected devices and the bandwidth consumed. It is essential that future fixed access networks have the capacity to absorb this growth.

To deliver 100 Gb/s on a single wavelength, Nokia Bell Labs leveraged cost-effective 25G optics in combination with state-of-the-art digital signal processing (DSP) techniques. 25G class optics are based on mature eco-system and available today. Going beyond 25G requires advanced DSP capabilities demonstrated in this trial. Once this DSP is adopted, the steps to 50G and 100G are straightforward and could be commercially available in the second half of the decade.

The Nokia Bell Labs 100G PON prototype is the world’s first application of flexible rate transmission in a PON network. Flexible rate transmission works by grouping fiber modems (ONUs) that exhibit similar physical network characteristics (e.g. loss or dispersion) and makes data transmission more efficient. Using flexible rate transmission results in lower latency on a PON and cuts power consumption in half, two essential characteristics for fiber networks that have a rapidly growing role in the massive delivery of fixed and mobile broadband services.