BT, Verizon and China Telecom among the first to react as Broadband Forum announces first successful product certifications
Leading telecoms operators from all parts of the world have been quick to express their support for yesterday’s announcement that the first G-PON ONU (Optical Network Units) products had completed the testing required to achieve the Broadband Forum’s new certification program.
Products from seven vendors from the US, Europe and Asia have had products approved against the world’s first G-PON certification and test program announced by the Broadband Forum last month. The move has been welcomed by global service providers as a major milestone in increasing the deployment of high speed fiber broadband. “The Broadband Forum G-PON Certification program will provide assurance that technologies meet industry specifications through an independent testing service,” said Verizon’s Chris Mayer, Vice President, Corporate Technology, Systems Integration and Testing. “Consistency in offerings and equipment lessen the impact of non-standard equipment causing unnecessary downtime.”
Both British Telecom and China Telecom, the world’s largest network operator, added their approval to the announcement. “BBF certification work will improve the quality and functionality of G-PON ONU products,” said Kevin Foster, Head of Access Design CoE, Access Platform at BT Innovate & Design. Wei Leping, speaking on behalf of China Telecom, said: “G-PON interoperability is critical for mass deployment in the Chinese market. The G-PON Certification will certainly enable us to accelerate the widespread availability of faster broadband. With the Chinese market moving towards an estimated 250 million subscriber lines by 2015 and a household penetration of 50%, China Telecom sees G-PON and the advent of certified G-PON products as an important step in making this a reality.”
The seven successful vendors with certified products – Alcatel-Lucent, Broadlight, Cambridge Industries Group, Huawei, PMC-Sierra, PT Inovação and Tecom – were also quick to highlight the benefits to the industry. Speaking at the Broadband Forum’s press conference at ITU Telecom World yesterday, José Salgado of PT Inovação, one of the successful vendors, said: “Interoperability is the key to the success of our G-PON product line and will substantially help us with sales of our product range going forward.”
The Broadband Forum G-PON Certification Program is an industry first, verifying the conformance of G-PON products and their adherence to the ITU-T G-PON standard and to Broadband Forum specifications. It paves the way for interoperability, giving service providers greater scope to expand their high speed broadband services cost-effectively. It provides vendors with the opportunity to test once and use their certification globally, saving testing cost and time as they compete in RFPs for business.
Robin Mersh, CEO of Broadband Forum, said: “This robust compliance certification program is the bedrock on which to expedite interoperability and fiber market penetration. It will ensure strong future network development for superfast broadband. We have today taken an important step for vendors and for their service provider customers.”
Malcolm Johnson, Director, Telecommunication Standardization Bureau, ITU, commented: “We welcome and applaud BBF’s G-PON certification programme. Conformity to ITU’s internationally agreed standards will foster an environment where service providers can pick and choose equipment from a variety of vendors, and will greatly increase the probability of interoperability. This will increase competition and bring down costs... something especially important in developing countries.”
The Broadband Forum has published a Global Registry of certified products at:
http://www.broadband-forum.org/technical/certifiedgpon.php.
