Our own Ciena research shows that many customers are now using a wide range of high-bandwidth applications from home, especially during traditional working hours. These include everything from work applications, such as video conferencing, to streaming services, social networking, and cloud gaming – going far beyond download and upload bandwidth limits. The same research shows over 80% of consumers feel they need better internet service, and 43% of customers plan to upgrade their packages within two years.

Things have changed

Until now, network providers have had to create separate Passive Optical Network (PON) infrastructures for business and residential services. In most instances, the existing 1G EPON and 2.5G GPON technologies are no longer able to keep pace. In the very near future, the ability to meet customers’ needs, maximize satisfaction, and minimize churn, will depend on access network upgrades – usually to an XGS-PON (10G) environment.

XGS-PON provides 10x the symmetrical bandwidth of either EPON or GPON services which helps ensure that customers’ growing download and upload demands can be met long-term as bandwidth requirements increase, and subscriber populations get ‘denser’.

Now, Ciena’s Universal Aggregation (UA) enables high-capacity aggregation capabilities that can support residential and Small and Medium-size Enterprise (SME) broadband services, business Ethernet services, and nearby mobile networks (4G/5G) on the same, highly efficient architecture. This essentially allows you to build a common access architecture once and sell it three times.

Another key strength of Ciena UA is its potential to extend broadband access to cabinets, poles, and other ‘edge’ locations using ruggedized equipment. This allows operators to deliver residential, business, and mobile services to many new users cost-effectively – especially in more rural and remote areas.

With this approach, you can not only achieve the lowest possible cost per 10G PON port but also open the door to new business and mobile services revenues. There is also the opportunity to provide lower-cost connectivity services for business customers looking to adopt cloud-based services, for example. All of this leads to per-port savings that will drive significant CAPEX and OPEX savings over the whole network.

But that’s not all

Equally important, Ciena’s UA solution provides a clear upgrade path to 25G PON, helping you to meet subscribers’ growing bandwidth demands long into the future.

The constant need for more bandwidth year-on-year is also driving demand for cutting-edge coherent optical technologies that can get the most from existing fiber infrastructure. At the same time, operations teams need to scale up capabilities, automate routine tasks, provide self-healing capabilities to the network, and keep costs under control.

It is also about scaling up operations

The dramatic growth of subscribers requires operators to speed up network management, new service deployment, and support processes. To meet those challenges, aggregation networks need to be equipped with network slicing capabilities, such as soft Segment Routing (SR) and hard FlexEthernet (FlexE). They must also integrate with the most advanced optical and synchronization technologies to achieve a converged optical and IP networking approach. Telemetry and automation capabilities are also needed to assure great performance in the network layer, with added flexibility provided by the Control Layer and next-generation Network Management and Orchestration software.

Putting it all into practice: Ciena UA and XGS-PON (10G) success stories

Ciena customers are using our UA and XGS-PON (10G) solutions to dramatically increase their network efficiency and create new revenue potential. Specifically, our customers are creating networks that support a variety of home, work, and remote (including mobile), and edge connectivity scenarios. You can read more about what they are able to achieve here.

Efficient network planning and deployment

To help operators plan, design, and roll out access networks in the most efficient way possible, Ciena has developed a new mapping model that is underpinned with expert consultancy from our pre-sales teams. Contact us today for more information on how to start planning and designing your access networks to realize major deployment and operational savings for your access rollouts.

Please get in touch

To find out more about Ciena’s UA solution for XGS-PON (10G), we have plenty of resources online here. You can also contact us and we’ll be happy to set up a meeting to discuss your specific PON needs. Our consultants can also work with you to show the financial benefits or develop a specific business case for deploying Ciena UA in your access network.