Race for NGPON 2 heats up

 

 

Each operator will have different requirements for what they need from NGPON 2. For example, in a country like Japan where FTTH subscribers form 60% of the total, there might be more possibility for NTT to engage in central office consolidation more quickly. Whilst it is understandable that some operators prefer the tangible existing aspect of the hybrid solution there is a danger of standardising the technology in this direction and then seeing a further need for a new standard further down the track, for example, because operators want longer reach. Indeed this case of a technology being standardised and then not being of interest to operators is applicable to XGPON 1 whose higher bandwidths have not been enough to drive any widespread rollouts. Nevertheless certain operators may have a shorter term view as competitive pressures, for example, from cable move their investment horizons to a shorter and shorter time frame making the certainties of hybrid TWDM PON a safer bet.