Verizon Conducts Field Trial of 10 Gigabit-per-Second Technology

Verizon has successfully completed a field trial of an advanced fiber-optic transmission technology known as XG-PON2, capable of delivering a 10 Gbps broadband connection both downstream and upstream.

Conducted at a customer’s business in Taunton, Mass., the trial used the same optical fiber that provides that business with its existing FiOS network connection and services and employed a pre-standard XG-PON2 technology. The upstream speeds achieved in the test were eight times faster than those provided by the standard GPON, or gigabit passive optical network, technology.

The 10 Gbps signal was transmitted over the FiOS connection that the Taunton business currently uses for its Internet connection and to provide five FiOS TV connections to the business’ customers. None of the FiOS TV connections were affected by the trial, and there was no impairment to the business customer’s data service as the GPON and XG-PON2 signals were layered over the same fiber for the trial.

The XG-PON2 prototype system was developed by Alcatel-Lucent, which provides a GPON system used by Verizon, and implemented using the same wavelengths that were standardized for an earlier version of the XG-PON technology. The optical network terminal (ONT) unit placed at the business-customer location supported up to 10 single GigE links, as well as one dedicated link capable of delivering the full 10 Gbps symmetric speeds to a single location. Two PCs, each having a 10 Gbps network interface card, were communicating across the network between the ONT and the line terminal equipment located in the Verizon switching facility in Taunton.

The team tested the continuous transfer of 2 gigabyte files from 20 concurrent clients using a commercial Web-server application. The files were transferred both upstream and downstream, simulating what a business customer would experience when 20 employees are performing concurrent file transfers to and from remote locations.

Verizon is charting new territory with the field trial of this 10/10 Gbps system, with the XG-PON2 technology setting new speeds records. However, the work on the ITU-T standard for the technology, including the wavelength plan, will begin only after the XG-PON1 standards are all ratified, which is expected later this year.