Experts say that rising energy costs have become the latest reason for operators to adopt broadband PON technology.
Julie Kunstler, chief analyst of broadband access intelligence of Omdia (sisters company of Light Reading), said that a new survey of Omdia found that many telecom companies regard PON as a key part of their energy saving plans.
At Thursday’s Light Reading webinar, she said that another large group of operator executives expressed their belief that PON will play a role in their energy-saving strategy. She said, “PON is energy-saving, which undoubtedly attracts everyone’s attention.
Anuradha Udunuwara, Senior Enterprise Solutions Architect at Sri Lanka Telecom, stated that after a significant increase in electricity prices, energy costs have become a greater concern in the past 12 months. He agreed that PON “has an absolute advantage… there is no energy consumption.”
Kunstler stated that operators are vigorously developing next-generation PONs, especially XGS PONs. But perhaps more importantly, PON also supports other types of customers and applications.
Kunstler also pointed out that PON technology has the characteristics of high fiber asset efficiency, easy upgrade, and high security, and allows operators to choose when to upgrade. But she reminded that in many telecommunications companies, PON faces organizational obstacles because people believe it only serves consumers and there is a gap between residential and commercial services.
Kunstler stated that the sales and marketing teams are not familiar with PON. Many people believe that its point-to-point topology is only applicable to residential areas and only provides the standard Internet service model (Best effort), without the technical capability to support enterprise services.
But some operators need a lot of education to explain to sales and marketing teams that PON is not just a standard internet service model, it can actually promise prices. Not all enterprises need point-to-point. They don’t all need their own dedicated fiber optic, and many of them really don’t want to pay for dedicated fiber optic.
Udunuwara describes PON as an “architectural option” that can support FTTX deployment. He said that PON is only used for FTTH is a myth, but it is not limited to any variant of FTTX. He expects that in the long run, various services will be concentrated on a single access technology.
Kunstler stated that selling commercial services through PON has improved the return on investment for access infrastructure. She said that with 10G PON, you can easily support one gigabit symmetry, two gigabit symmetries, five gigabit symmetries, and more, while 50 GPON (to be launched in a few years) can even support more bandwidth.
By using optical distribution networks for scenarios outside of residential areas, operators have begun to shift towards integrated access methods. Through a single access network, operators can earn more revenue. They only have one network that needs to be upgraded, and they have improved optical performance and saved energy.