First 50G-PON merchant silicon spurs operator trials

Broadcom has unveiled the industry’s first merchant silicon for the 50-gigabit passive optical network (50G-PON) access standard. Until now, only access equipment players such as Huawei and ZTE had their own 50G-PON silicon.  

A 50G-PON network. Source: Adtran.

Broadcom has announced two 50G-PON devices: an optical line terminal (OLT) chip and the optical networking unit (ONU) 50-PON port to the users.  Both chips include custom hardware from Broadcom to run artificial intelligence (AI) machine-learning algorithms. 

Jim Muth, senior manager of product marketing at Broadcom, says supporting AI benefits the operator and the quality of the end user’s broadband service. 

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Verizon prepares its next-gen PON request for proposal

Verizon will publish its next-generation passive optical network (PON) requirements for equipment makers in the coming month.

Vincent O'Byrne

The NG-PON2 request for proposal (RFP) is being issued after the US operator completed a field test that showed a 40 gigabit NG-PON2 system working alongside Verizon’s existing GPON customer traffic.  

The field test involved installing a NG-PON2 optical line terminal (OLT) at a Verizon central office and linking it to a FiOS customer’s home 5 km away. A nearby business location was also included in the trial.

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Photonic integration specialist OneChip tackles PON

Briefing: PON

Part 1: Monolithic integrated transceivers

OneChip Photonics is moving to volume production of PON transceivers based on its photonic integrated circuit (PIC) design. The company believes that its transceivers can achieve a 20% price advantage.

"We will be able to sell [our integrated PON transceivers] at a 20% price differential when we reach high volumes"

Andy Weirich, OneChip Photonics

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