Pushing ahead on next-gen FTTP technology, Calix said it Verizon has tapped its AXOS platform to start a “large-scale” deployment of NG-PON2 in the first quarter of 2018.

The initial rollout, based on Calix’s AXOS E9-2 Intelligent Edge System, includes the AXOS RPm (Routing Protocol module for Layer 3) and the AXOS SMm (Subscriber Management module for disaggregated Broadband Network Gateway).

In 2016, Verizon selected equipment from Ericsson (in partnership with Calix) and Adtran for NG-PON2 technology testing from the telco’s Innovation Lab in Waltham, Mass. That followed earlier tests by Verizon, which determined then that NG-PON2 cold “easily provide” symmetrical speeds of 10 Gbps to businesses and residential customers.

RELATED: Verizon Sets NG-PON2 Lab Tests

“Several years ago, we determined that we were going to need a better network to meet our growing customers’ demands for bandwidth and higher throughput,” Vincent O’Byrne, director of technology planning at Verizon, said in a statement. “We saw that the single wavelength systems (e.g., 10G EPON and XGS-PON) were only possible interim solutions and that we needed a longer term solution. NG-PON2 is a platform that will meet the customers’ envisioned needs for the next decade or more given its many evolution paths as well as bringing many operational benefits to simplify the network. It represents a paradigm shift in the design of access networks.” 

Setting its sights on a next-gen FTTP platform that can deliver 10 Gbps to the home, Verizon said it has tapped two vendors as it kicks off testing of NG-PON2 technology at its Innovation Lab in Waltham, Mass.

Later this month, Verizon will start to test equipment from Ericsson (in partnership with Calix) and Adtran. The tests will focus on NG-PON2 features such as tuning performance, the ability to carry residential and business services on the same platform, and interoperability and conformance tests against Verizon ONT specs.

The coming lab trials follow Verizon’s tests of NG-PON2 conducted in 2015 and the issuance of an RFP, holding then that the next-gen platform could “easily provide” symmetrical speeds of 10  Gbps to homes and business locations. 

Verizon noted that NG-PON2 supports up to 40-Gig of total capacity and up to 10 Gbps per customer, both up and down, on a single fiber.  Verizon said it plans to deploy NG-PON2 initially for business services in 2017, and then follow with residential rollouts “as the technology matures and the market demands.” The ITU-T approved NG-PON2 specs last year.

Verizon’s current high-end residential tier for Fios delivers 500 Mbps up and downstream; the telco has not announced when it might bump speeds up to 1-Gig to match up with the speeds being offered by AT&T (via GigaPower), Google Fiber, and various MSOs that are using DOCSIS 3.0 to offer downstream burst speeds approaching 1-Gig.

Verizon is also moving ahead with NG-PON2 as it braces for DOCSIS 3.1, a next-gen HFC platform that is capable of delivering multi-gigabit speeds. While the initial D3.1 specs envisioned capcities of 10-Gig down and at least 1-Gig up, a “full-duplex” flavor of D3.1 that can support high-capacity symmetrical speeds is under development at CableLabs.

Among MSOs, Comcast has kicked off advanced consumer trials of DOCSIS 3.1 in two markets – Atlanta and Nashville – and plans to expand the platform to three more markets (Chicago, Miami and Detroit) later this year.

Verizon said it has successfully tested NG-PON2 FTTP technology that, it claims, could “easily provide” symmetrical speeds of 10 Gbps to business and residential customers.

The telco, which is currently offering up to 500 Mbps up and down on its residential FiOS high-speed Internet platform, said the next-gen PON tech likewise will “open the door” to a blistering 80 Gbps.

Verizon said the trial conducted with a NG-PON2 equipment system from Cisco and PT Inovação at the telco’s central in Framingham, Mass., to a FiOS customer’s home three miles away, as well as to a nearby business location.

The trial used a new optical line terminal (OLT) installed at the central office that pumped out four wavelengths that was each capable of operating at 10 Gbps down by 2.5 Gbps up. Future versions will support symmetrical 10G per color, the company said.

Verizon noted that upgrades on the FTTP network will start when commercial equipment is available to support business offerings such as switched Ethernet services. The telco plans to issue a request for proposals later this year for the hardware and software needed for a new NG-PON2 platform.

While 10-Gig “would be most attractive for business customers,” Verizon said that picture will change for consumers amid the adoption of 4K video and the expected explosion of the so-called Internet of Things, which will generate demand for higher symmetrical speeds and lower latencies.

“The advantage of our FiOS network is that it can be upgraded easily by adding electronics onto the fiber network that is already in place,” Verizon VP of network technology Lee Hicks said, in a statement, “Deploying this exciting new technology sets a new standard for the broadband industry and further validates our strategic choice of fiber-to-the-premises.”

The field trial, the telco said, validated an important service reliability feature of NG-PON2 – it simulated a fault in the central office equipment, but the ONT restored its own 10G service “in seconds” by autonomously  tuning to another wavelength.

According to Hicks, NG-PON2 will have the system capacity to grow to 40 Gbps to 80 Gbps, by adding new colors of light onto the existing fiber. Each new color beefs up the capacity by up to 10 Gbps.

The new technology could raise the stakes in the broadband game. Thanks in part to pressure being applied by Google Fiber, the high-end benchmark for residential broadband is 1 Gbps.  Comcast, meanwhile, has begun to offer 2 Gbps residential service via its targeted, FTTP-based “Gigabit Pro” product.

DOCSIS 3.1, an emerging platform for HFC networks, is aiming for capacities of 10 Gbps down and at least 1  Gbps downstream.