Fujitsu turns up GPON PR machine

Fujitsu Network Communications announced a “hybrid” approach to the Gigabit passive optical networking (GPON) market this week, the latest in a string of publicity efforts the vendor has made since declaring its entry into the GPON space earlier this month.

A press release issued by Fujitsu this week said the company is combining standards-based GPON with coarse wavelength-division multiplexing (CWDM), allowing carriers to upgrade the bandwidth of GPON networks without replacing central office equipment. The company has declined to elaborate further on the technology, as part of what a company spokesperson called a “controlled release” of the information. “An official product launch will follow in a few months,” he said.

The press release implies that Fujitsu is anticipating residential bandwidth needs in the next decade to grow beyond even the 2.5 Gb/s downstream, 1.2 Gb/s upstream speeds specified by the latest GPON standards. “While it’s hard to predict future bandwidth demands, it is highly unlikely that a customer’s insatiable appetite for bandwidth will be satisfied for a prolonged period,” the release said. “After spending billions to upgrade their networks to GPON, telcos could be faced with yet another round of expensive and disruptive overbuilds in five to ten years.”

However, Fujitsu did not specify the speeds its hybrid approach could deliver.

A spokesman called this week’s GPON hybrid release the “final” installment in a series of GPON-related announcements Fujitsu has made this month, as AT&T, BellSouth and Verizon Communications draw closer to selecting winners in a GPON request for proposals (RFPs) issued in November. Earlier this month, Fujitsu announced it was “strengthening” its GPON product development efforts, dedicating more than 100 hardware and software engineers to the task. (At press time, it wasn’t clear how much staff were previously assigned to it.) And last week, Fujitsu joined the Fiber-to-the-Home Council.

As many as 18 equipment vendors may be vying for a carrier contract through that RFP, one analyst said recently. Last week, one vendor executive told Telephony he believed a supplier decision was “imminent.”