China Mobile launches FTTx's first centralized procurement: GPON domestic deployment

According to people familiar with the matter, China Mobile's first FTTx centralized procurement tender has been launched in December 2009, and construction will reach 3 million lines in the first quarter of 2010. This marks that China Mobile is officially involved in the field of fixed broadband, and it will also promote GPON to enter the fast lane of domestic scale deployment.

China Mobile FTTx's first centralized procurement bidding: big players compete

Choose GPON or EPON, this is an inevitable problem in FTTx construction. China Mobile has conducted research and tests on PON technology for more than a year, and has clarified the principle of "both equal, prefer GPON", that is, in the case of the same performance and price ratio, GPON can be given priority.

According to reports, the FTTx centralized procurement bidding involves both GPON and EPON fields. It will be launched in accordance with the principle of "both equal emphasis on GPON". The construction volume in the first quarter of 2010 will reach 3 million lines.

Before the bidding, more than 20 provinces of China Mobile had piloted and deployed between 2008 and 2009. Most provinces chose GPON, proving their confidence in the maturity and commercial scale of GPON technology.

As China's first GPON large-scale centralized procurement bidding, this bidding has also become the first public competition of various manufacturers' equipment in the GPON field in China, which will directly affect the future market structure. Therefore, Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson, Huawei, Fiberhome, ZTE, Motorola and many other industry leaders have participated in the share competition.

In addition, according to C114 China Communications Network, the prices of GPON and EPON equipment from mainstream manufacturers are "basically flat" from the perspective of the price of the public bidding.

GPON's domestic scale deployment enters the fast lane

With the introduction of GPON pilots by China Telecom and China Unicom in 2009, and China Mobile's "both equal emphasis, preferred GPON", the unique situation of China's optical access market EPON has been broken. This time China Mobile's FTTx first centralized procurement bidding will further promote GPON into the fast lane of domestic scale deployment.

The GPON standard was first proposed by the FSAN organization in 2002 (C114 Note: FSAN, Full Service Access Networks, full service access network), and promulgated by ITU-T. Because it is mainly promoted by telecom operators, industry manufacturers and experts, and the definition is more rigorous, more consideration is given to bandwidth, service carrying, management and maintenance. GPON is considered to be more suitable for full-service operation and "triple network integration" applications.

According to C114, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology promulgated the GPON recommended communication industry standard at the end of June 2009. China ’s first GPON industry standard was officially released, which completely dispelled the concerns of telecom operators in choosing GPON technology.

Dr. Li Han of China Mobile Communications Research Institute pointed out in the third phase of the "Expert Sitting" Communication People's Home "You Ask Me Answer" that from a technical point of view, GPON has a larger bandwidth (2.5 times) and a longer transmission distance than EPON ( 10km more), with a higher split ratio (doubled), which meets the needs of flat access network construction under the conditions of fewer mobile equipment rooms and tight fiber optic resources in China; at the same time, from the perspective of the industry chain, GPON systems, chips and optical The scale and strength of the module manufacturers exceed EPON. Nine of the top ten fixed network operators in the world have chosen GPON.

Wei Leping, director of the China Telecom Technology Committee, had previously also made a high-profile prediction that by 2013, the market size of GPON will be three times that of EPON, becoming the dominant technology of FTTx. A recent report from Dell'Oro shows that GPON revenue is growing faster than EPON.