Verizon Touts Progress on Next-Gen FTTP

Verizon said it has reached a technical milestone for NG-PON2, a next-gen fiber-to-the-premises platform capable of supporting up to 40 Gbps of capacity, after wrapping up an interoperability lab trial. Verizon, which announced the lab trial initiative last year and tests of NG-PON2 that started in 2015, said Adtran, Broadcom, Cortina Access and Ericsson (in partnership with Calix) participated in the interop trial, which is aligned with the telco’s Open OMCI (ONT Management and Control Interface) specs, which define the OLT-to-ONT interface. Verizon said it will share the results in the next few months. Verizon called the interop a “breakthrough” because it represents a significant step in creating a platform that will enabling the mixing and matching of vendors for various components for NG-PON2, an emerging standard (the ITU-T approved the NG-PON2 specs in 2015) that enables up to 40 Gbps of capacity and symmetrical speeds of up 10 Gbps per customer.