Nokia, CityFibre trial UK’s first 25G PON network to support 5G transport

Nokia and CityFibre, the UK's largest independent full-fibre platform, have trialled the UK's first 25G PON network to support 5G transport. The trial was conducted at the University of Glasgow's fibre-based digital campus on 18th November 2021.

In partnership with Nokia and CityFibre, we have demonstrated on our 5G testbed how Nokia's next-generation 25G PON transport solution can improve 5G user experience by supporting 3D telepresence and remote robotic control use cases.

Professor Muhammad Imran, Professor of Communication Systems and Director, Communications Sensing and Imaging Group, University of Glasgow.

The University of Glasgow is using the long-term testbed, funded by the Scotland 5G Centre, to explore business cases for enterprises to exploit and adopt 5G. The trail leveraged the network for a series of simulations including a holographic call between campus buildings, teleoperation of a robotic arm and 8K video streaming, Nokia said in a press release on Tuesday.

Nokia's 25G PON solution utilizes the world’s first implementation of 25G PON technology and includes Lightspan and ISAM access nodes, Quillion based Multi-PON line cards and fiber modems. Dependent on the optics chosen, 25G PON supports symmetrical bitrates (25Gb/s in downstream and 25G in upstream) and asymmetrical bitrates (25/10).

Commenting on this development, Phil Siveter, CEO of Nokia UK, said, "This trial has been hugely encouraging. 25G PON will be a game-changer with mission-critical 5G networks increasingly requiring more redundancy. And it's proven it can be run on exactly the same fiber running XGS-PON traffic."