NBN has partnered with Nokia to test fibre technology that could deliver speeds of up to 10 gigabits per second in the future.
The technology, called Next-Generation Passive Optical Network 2, or NG-PON2, has been tested for a year in Nokia’s Melbourne lab facility, where aggregate speeds of 102Gbps were achieved on a single fibre.
“The NG-PON2 trials we have conducted with Nokia have shown us the huge potential this very exciting technology has in terms of helping us deliver on our future bandwidth and capacity requirements,” said NBN’s chief technology officer Dennis Steiger.
Benefits would be mostly limited to FTTP, where symmetric 10Gbps connections could be achieved. While fibre-to-the-curb (FTTC) and fibre-to-the-basement (FTTB) would also benefit, effects would be limited on FTTN connections due to the reliance on copper.
According to iTnews, Steiger said the technology is between five to ten years away from being rolled out.
In February, NBN CEO Bill Morrow said that, despite a wholesale 1Gbps being made available to retail service providers for about four years, no 1Gbps speed plans are currently sold due to “minimal consumer demand for these ultra-fast speeds – especially at the prices retailers would have to charge for them.”
