Launched at a media event in Antwerp, the opening was attended by the Belgian Minister of Telecommunications, the Mayor of Antwerp and executives and engineers from both companies.
“Today’s 25G PON achievement demonstrates the unlimited potential of fibre,” said Rupert Wood, research director for fibre networks at Analysys Mason.
“This next evolution in fibre technology will provide enterprises with greater than 10Gbps connectivity and the capacity needed to support 5G transport along with future next generation services such as massive scale Virtual Reality and real time digital twins.”
Operating over existing fibre in the Proximus network and using Nokia equipment, this ‘first ever’ 25G PON live network connects the Havenhuis building in the Port of Antwerp with the Proximus central office in the city. Overall, network speed exceeded 20Gbps.
“The activation of the first 25G PON network worldwide shapes our bold ambition to be a trendsetter, to become a reference operator in Europe and, why not, across the globe. Together with Nokia, we have achieved a technological leap forward that will become a key enabler of the digital and economy and society that we stand for,” said Guillaume Boutin (pictured), CEO of Proximus.
The news comes as Proximus is accelerating it rollout of fibre, adding 10% coverage each year and to reach its target of at least 70% of homes and business by 2028. This forms part of its inspire 2022 strategy, to create a high capacity open network which will be available to all operators.
“10 years ago, our companies launched the technology which enabled a switch to HD TV. Today we make history again with a network that is 200x faster,” said Federico Guillén, president of network infrastructure at Nokia.
“We are proud to support Proximus in enabling the world’s first 25G PON network, powered by Nokia’s Quillion chipset, which supports three generations of PON technologies. Quillion has been adopted by more than 100 operators since its launch last year and all operators deploying the Quillion based GPON and XGS-PON solution today have the capabilities to easily evolve to 25G PON.”
