Nokia will supply its fiber solutions to Openreach to help meet its target of bringing ultra-fast and reliable broadband access to 20 million homes across the UK by the mid-to-late 2020s.
Nokia will provide GPON and XGS-PON technologies to expand Openreach’s fiber-rich network to reach 4.5 million premises by the end of March 2021. The solution, which includes the 7360 ISAM FX, Nokia 7362 ISAM DF and Nokia ISAM ONTs, is capable of delivering up to 10Gbps symmetrical broadband speeds in the future and supports a smooth evolution from current traditional deployments to virtualized access-network control and management (SDAN – Software Defined Access Networking) by software upgrade. Financial terms were not disclosed.
Nokia described the agreement as a key milestone in its extensive partnership with Openreach to deliver multi-Gigabit, next generation PON connectivity to customers and builds on an extensive end-to-end network framework that has been established over the past years. This includes G.fast technology which currently allows Openreach to offer 100s of Mbps to homes in areas where fiber is not available yet.
Clive Selley, CEO of Openreach, said: “We’re accelerating our full fibre build to deliver an ultrafast, ultra-reliable and futureproof broadband network throughout the UK. This new digital platform will help our economy to bounce back more quickly from the Covid-19 pandemic – enabling people to continue work from home, and millions of businesses to operate seamlessly online for decades to come. Right now, we’re making the new network available to around 32,000 homes and businesses every week, and Nokia’s innovative solutions are helping us to build it better, broader and faster. Our partnership with Nokia will be critical in helping us to upgrade the nation and hit our target of reaching four and a half million premises by the end of March 2021.”
Peter Bell, Network Technologies Director, Openreach CTIO said: “Nokia is already making a major contribution to Openreach’s Fibre-to-the-Premises rollout, including in the build of our first fully fibred city, Salisbury. We’re confident that Nokia will continue to be a strong partner in helping us meet our ambition throughout the UK.”
Sandra Motley, President of Fixed Networks at Nokia said: “Ensuring everybody has access to broadband services is critical, especially during unprecedented times like these where it has become the lifeline to millions working, handling healthcare and learning from home. Our fiber solutions will help Openreach bring enhanced ultra-broadband services to millions of new customers across the UK today while our 10G PON technology will help to futureproof their network against whatever may come next.”
Openreach picks ADTRAN's OLTs and Cloud Platform
ADTRAN said its SDX platform will enable Openreach to economically scale its GPON and XGS-PON network with a level of flexibility that could not be realized with traditional access solutions.
Peter Bell, Network Technologies Director, Openreach said: “We’re already making our new ultrafast, ultra-reliable broadband network available to around 32,000 UK homes and businesses every week – and we’re on track to reach our target of reaching four and a half million premises with ‘Full Fibre’ by the end of March 2021.”“But we don’t want to stop there. Our new network will support the UK’s economy for decades to come and help it bounce back from the COVID-19 pandemic, so we’ll be accelerating our Full Fibre build throughout the year. ADTRAN’s solutions will play a key role in helping us achieve that as we’re continually searching for innovative technologies that can help us build the network better, broader and faster for our customers.”
More than 600 retail carriers across the United Kingdom rely on Openreach to deliver the wholesale capacity to support a broad portfolio of services to enterprise, small-to-medium businesses and residential customers.
