CityFibre picks Nokia to upgrade nationwide network to 10Gbps XGS-PON technology

Nokia and UK's CityFibre have signed a 10-year XGS-PON broadband equipment deal including access nodes for the latter's nationwide network of purpose-built Fibre Exchanges, fiber modems for customer homes and IP aggregation switches.

"The demand for ever-faster speeds continues and we're delighted that our 25G ready solution has been chosen by CityFibre to enable their GPON to 10G XGS-PON national network upgrade program, supporting their mission to offer the highest capacity wholesale services into the UK market," said Sandy Motley, President, Fixed Networks at Nokia.

According to a press release by Nokia, CityFibre is building an open access network which will connect up to 8 million premises in 285 cities, towns and villages, reaching a third of the country. As part of the deal, Nokia will supply Lightspan access nodes, which will be used by CityFibre to offer its wholesale customers multigig residential broadband (up to 10Gb/s in both directions) and higher bandwidth services.

Powered by Nokia's Quillion chipset, the same access nodes can be used for both XGS-PON and 25G PON (25Gb/s) on the same fiber, should CityFibre wish to do this in the future.

In a separate press release, CityFibre said that the deployment of XGS-PON access technology will enable the introduction of residential and business services at symmetrical speeds of up to 10Gbps – around ten times the capability of CityFibre's current G-PON-based architecture. The rollout will allow it to support more customers on each OLT port, enabling substantial network cost savings, reducing power use across its networks and improving the efficiency of its future network expansion.

CityFibre will begin deploying 10Gbps XGS-PON access technology as standard from April 2023.

Commenting on this development, John Franklin, Chief Technology and Information Officer at CityFibre said, "By partnering with Nokia we have enlisted a trusted and market-leading technology vendor to help support a nationwide 10Gbps XGS-PON technology deployment programme."