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nbn™ trials 10 Gbps fibre tech most of you will never see
With Australians flocking to fast broadband, the digital divide's going to keep widening
Nokia seems to believe in the future of fibre: it's run a test with nbn™ demonstrating next-generation passive optical networking (NG-PON) running at 10 Gbps.
If it looks like mixed messaging to you, you're probably not alone, since under current plans, the only households able to run any kind of PON are the those who already have fibre to the premises (FTTP).
The science project was announced by Nokia yesterday.
The media release touts an aggregate throughput of 102 Gbps, but that's probably misleading to the inexpert reader.
The individual solutions tested at the nbn™ Melbourne lab showed off kit using the XGS-PON and TWDM-PON standards. TWDM-PON uses multiple wavelengths on a fibre to deliver subscriber bitrates of 2.5 Gbps or 10 Gbps, while XGS-PON uses a single wavelength at 10 Gbps.
Both standards offer a choice of symmetrical or asymmetrical transmission.
Since, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics' latest Internet Activity report, Australians like higher-speed services. More than 58 percent of users take services advertised at more than 24 Mbps, and nearly 290,000 customers are running at better than 100 Mbps. Between December 2015 and December 2016, fixed line downloads grew by a respectable 51.3 percent. ®
Biting the hand that feeds IT
