PMC-Sierra announces industry’s first symmetric and asymmetric 10G-EPON OLT SoC to enable next gen ultra-broadband services

SUNNYVALE, USA: PMC-Sierra Inc. has announced 10G-EPON OLT devices with industry-leading traffic management, packet processing, on-chip redundancy and the industry’s most advanced optical diagnostic technologies.

PMC-Sierra’s 10G-EPON OLT family complies with IEEE 802.3av specifications and China carrier specifications for both asymmetric and symmetric 10G-EPON modes. The devices provide the highest network reliability and Quality of Service (QoS), and are the first to integrate a complete, always-on toolkit for optical network and ONU inspection.

The toolkit consists of an in-band Optical Time Domain Reflectometer (OTDR) and Upstream Signal Analyzer, that operate while in-service, reducing the need for external test equipment. On-chip fiber Automatic Protection Switching (APS) enables a rapid switch-over in cases of failure in the optical distribution network (ODN).

“10G-EPON allows carriers to meet the demand for enhanced triple-play services and ever-increasing bandwidth requirements, while doubling the number of users supported over the same fiber infrastructure,” said Raphael Sankar, vice president and co-general manager of PMC-Sierra’s FTTH division. “Our integrated traffic management, packet processing, break-through optical diagnostics and built-in Power Save Control enable customers worldwide to deliver feature-rich, reliable and cost-effective solutions.”

PMC-Sierra’s enhanced QoS exceeds China Telecom specifications, including IPv6 protocol support. The integrated traffic management and packet processing eliminates the need for high-power, low-density external traffic management processors and enables the largest number of subscriber connections with best-in-class QoS. A sophisticated queuing system lowers the cost of deployment and reduces power by enabling a loss-less power save implementation at the EPON and 10G-EPON ONUs.

“We expect 10G EPON shipments to pick up significantly in 2011 among major operators in the Asia Pacific region,” said Jeff Heynen, directing analyst, Broadband Access, at Infonetics Research. “Whether it’s increasing bandwidth per subscriber or increasing the number of subscriber splits, operators will gradually transition to 10G for all their major FTTX deployments.”