The NG-PON2 technology, developed by Altice Labs, 100% national and worldwide pioneer, was a finalist of the European Broadband Awards 2016. This technology is a GPON evolution and ensures the support for higher speeds through the use of light transmission in multiple colors, or wavelenghts, currently with symmetrical 40 Gbps maximums (for upload and download). This represents an immediate advantage compared with GPON, currently limited to download speeds of up to 2,5Gbps and upload speeds of up to 1,25 Gbps. Thus, NG-PON2 allows the increase of current fibre optics speeds of up to 16 to 32 times, enabling the commitment to bring fibre to 5.3 million portuguese houses until 2020.
Supported by COMPETE, it’s a project of high technical, scientific and economic interest, capable of revolutionizing the telecommunications sector, crucial to the portuguese economy.
It is the result of Altice Labs’ long journey in the area of fibre optic networks (FTTx/GPON), under the national plan to contruct an optic infrastructure for the provision of broadband services in Next- Generation Networks (NGN).
This journey was strongly supported by Research & National Technological Development funding mechanisms, namely through QREN, previous Community Framework, with emphasis on the projects “Panorama”, “Panorama-2” and “GPON-IN-A-BOX” and, also, by some european programmes, with special focus on the following projects form the FP7 european programme: “Fiver” and “Sodales”.
The project was developed in a co-promotion scheme with the Telecommunications Institute, a long-term partner of Altice Labs in the National Scientific and Technological System.
In a interview given to COMPETE 2020, José Salgado, responsible for the Network Systems Development at Altice, stated that the project “allowed the leverage of research knowledge already developed by the consortium companies in R&D projects and allowed the development of a line of innovative prototypes and products not yet available commercially and to position Altice Labs as a pioneering company in this type of technology”(…)”thanks to this project, Altice Labs currently has one of the most rich and innovative portfolios in the market, and is at this moment taking the first steps towards its commercialization.”
The European Broadband Awards 2016 winners were announced on the 14th November in Brussels, in the context of the event “B-DAY: Going Giga”. To see the photos of the awards ceremony, follow this link.
To gain full knowledge of the editorial work around the NG-PON2 project done by COMPETE 2020, follow this link.