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Tuesday, 22 July 2008 |
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NSN scales down GPON access activity as FTTH disappoints…
Although it acknowledges that an enormous hunger for bandwidth is currently shaping fixed broadband access network development, Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) has announced that it is limiting its investment in existing Gigabit Passive Optical Network (GPON) technology. While the group anticipates an overall potential hundred-fold traffic growth in the period to 2015, NSN plans to focus on DSL and next generation optical access (NGOA) technology at the expense of GPON-based fibre-to- the-home (FTTH). The group argues that the mass market roll out of this flavour of FTTH is unlikely in the short term.
“Fibre is progressing closer to the home with the focus today on fibre-to-the-curb or –building (FTTC/FTTB) with last mile connectivity based on proven DSL technology,” judges Christoph Caselitz, Nokia Siemens Networks chief market operations officer. “Our view is that mass market roll out of fibre-to-the-home is unlikely in the short term due to regulatory uncertainty and the operator’s business cases. This will be different with the NGOA technology, where we will target to take a leading role.”
Here’s part of what the Ovum RHK consultancy made of the development, in the form of a contribution to its ‘Straight Talk’ analysis service posted by Dana Cooperson, vice president Optical Networks, and Lynn Hutcheson, vice president Communication Components.
“NSN says it will ‘support current GPON customers and customer obligations’ but shift its broadband access R&D resources to its DSL-based FTTB/FTTC products and to next-generation optical access, including 10GPON and WDM PON. It is betting that GPON will remain a niche until 2011 or so due to unfavourable FTTH economics, at which point NGOA technologies based on different network architectures will support more financially viable FTTH networks. Thus, NSN reasons, opting out of GPON will put it in a stronger position when the NGOA train pulls out of the FTTH station in three or four years,” explain the duo. “All vendors must make tough choices of where to invest, but we think NSN's FTTH strategy is risky. NSN's GPON pessimism is unwarranted given competitive pressures pushing operators to extend fiber to the premise to support higher-bandwidth services.”
Cooperson and Hutcheson add: “Second, catching the next FTTH wave is unlikely to be as easy as NSN hopes. Even if deployments are delayed from our (more conservative than some) projections, GPON vendors will have an advantage in future FTTH deployments: competitive advantage will accrue from crucial matters of field experience, including techniques for decreasing installation and maintenance costs.”
John Williamson
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