ADTRAN Accelerates Path to Symmetric 10 Gigabit Broadband

Industry breakthrough redefines the economics of NG-PON2 with a common 10G access architecture for simultaneous residential, premium business and backhaul application delivery

HUNTSVILLE, Ala.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–May 13, 2015– ADTRAN®, Inc. (NASDAQ:ADTN, news, filings), a leading provider of next-generation networking solutions, today announced an industry breakthrough in the economics of delivering Fiber-to-the-Premise (FTTP) services based on NG-PON2 architecture. Using the latest 10 Gigabit per second (10G) wavelength symmetric ITU/FSAN standards-based technology, ADTRAN is accelerating the delivery of NG-PON2 by transforming the economic paradigm that typically relegates new technologies to niche or premium services delivery for several years because of higher cost points. For service providers, this is the first time both existing residential FTTP customers and early business adopters of next-generation premium technology can be immediately supported on a single, common access architecture afforded by streamlining high cost areas of the next generation architecture.

In today’s market, operators are delivering multiple Gigabit broadband services from their FTTP network and commonly desire to converge premium business services onto this same network. Upgrading FTTP networks to 10G NG-PON2 provides network operators the performance to extend the life of their network. ADTRAN traffic engineering studies show that NG-PON2 can double the life of a FTTP network used for converged 1G residential and business services while providing an architecture that supports cost-effective 10G business and backhaul services delivery.

“ADTRAN’s NG-PON2 implementation has the potential to advance the adoption of 10G FTTP for residential markets by three to five years, while its increased capacity will double the life of the network,” said Jeff Heynen, research director for Broadband Access and Pay TV at Infonetics Research, now part of IHS Inc. “NG-PON2’s initial rollout was thought to primarily benefit premium business and backhaul services because of its much higher cost over GPON FTTP solutions. ADTRAN will dramatically change this dynamic, delivering 10G NG-PON2 solutions at costs approaching today’s volume-priced 2.5G GPON. This allows service providers to affordably scale next-gen PON deployments and provide flexibility without compromising future capabilities.”

Service providers face several challenges as they look for ways to scale their existing PON networks to meet the growing bandwidth demand from residential and business customers. Current GPON solutions support a limited number of true Gigabit broadband customers and are simply not designed to support premium multi-Gigabit cloud backhaul and wireless front-haul services. NG-PON2 solves this issue by delivering 4 times more bandwidth per wavelength and multiple wavelengths for additional capacity. However, the high cost of 10G optical components today is a limiting factor in making this a reality for the highly competitive, mass market of residential services delivery.

ADTRAN is streamlining the high cost design areas by developing a flexible optics approach to NG-PON2 allowing the system to interoperate with multiple “cost vs. capability” types of optical transceivers to maximize economic flexibility. This “pay as you grow” approach allows the service provider to align the optics cost with the target applications, starting with low-cost symmetric 10G deployment options and growing to multi-wavelength TWDM capabilities. ADTRAN’s NG-PON2 platform supports 10 Gigabit GPON, TWDM PON, P2P DWDM, 10 Gigabit EPON, and GPON. To optimize the full service agility promise of NG-PON2, ADTRAN’s solution supports provisioning through modern, open APIs, facilitating deployment using next-generation software defined networking (SDN)-based management systems. This new architecture is currently available for demonstration and will begin field trials in the third quarter of this year.

“ADTRAN has a long history in developing designs that break economic barriers, giving service providers the maximum flexibility they need to deliver the services of tomorrow that their customers demand today,” said Robert Conger, associate vice president, carrier strategy for ADTRAN. “With seemingly infinite demand for broadband from both residential and business customers, service providers are challenged to explore economically viable options that allow them to scale PON networks to support Gigabit service growth.”

About ADTRAN

ADTRAN, Inc. is a leading global provider of networking and communications equipment. ADTRAN’s products enable voice, data, video and Internet communications across a variety of network infrastructures. ADTRAN solutions are currently in use by service providers, private enterprises, government organizations, and millions of individual users worldwide. For more information, please visit www.adtran.com.