In the current era, a fast and stable fiber optic broadband network has become essential for people's lives and work. With the accelerating global digitization process and the gradual clarification of the future intelligent world, various emerging digital applications are constantly emerging, placing higher demands on network infrastructure. What is the next step? Moving towards "ubiquitous 10 Gbps connectivity (10Gbps Everywhere)" is a definite answer.

Just as the widespread deployment of 10G PON has made the popularity of gigabit broadband possible, achieving ubiquitous 10 Gbps requires outstanding "new tools." As the next-generation PON technology defined by ITU-T, 50G PON provides a 5-fold increase in bandwidth and a 100-fold reduction in latency compared to 10G PON. It has the capability to provide a deterministic business experience, supports smooth upgrades of PON networks, and is more environmentally friendly and energy-efficient. With these outstanding advantages, 50G PON has gained attention and favor from the industry.

In the current key period of technological cloudification, the international authoritative research institution Omdia has released the white paper "The Rise of 50G PON and Ubiquitous 10G Networks," focusing on various cases of 50G PON and discussing its applications in scenarios such as homes and industries. The white paper predicts that 50G PON will start commercial use in 2024 and maintain high-speed development momentum in the next decade.

Since 2018, 10G PON has thrived globally, leading the broadband industry into the gigabit era. According to Omdia's data, in 2022, the shipment volume of 10G PON ports accounted for 73% of the total shipment volume of OLT PON ports worldwide. Meanwhile, FTTR (fiber to the room) is driving optical connectivity from every home to every room, from every office to every desktop, and even to every machine.

However, the pursuit of the network experience is endless, and gigabit/ultra-gigabit is by no means the end. Omdia reveals several trends worth noting in its latest white paper. On the one hand, there is a clear demand for gigabit homes. With the emergence of new technologies, the demand for bandwidth and latency in homes will continue to grow, and the era of immersive experiences is imminent. For example, for "naked-eye 3D," as the viewing angle increases, up to 7 Gbps of bandwidth is needed to support images from over 60 angles. The growing bandwidth will enhance the user experience for each angle. Stable 2 Gbps speed is required for local access to cloud data, and operators need to ensure that the network provides seamless connectivity, supporting easy expansion and high-level security protection.

On the other hand, new industrial demands drive emerging solutions. In industrial or enterprise environments, networks are often complex and challenging to upgrade, requiring sustainable network solutions. Quality control is a crucial part of factory production, transitioning from manual quality control to CNC quality inspection requires installing image recognition artificial intelligence, which, in other words, needs a stable 3 Gbps network connection. Emerging applications in industrial parks are also accelerating popularity. In smart classrooms, electronic whiteboards support live broadcasting, remote collaboration, and simulation training, requiring powerful park wireless backhaul.

The white paper points out that with the continuous emergence of advanced applications and new scenarios, there is a need for a network solution that supports multi-gigabit applications and meets enterprise requirements. In fact, many operators worldwide have conducted research, verification, and pilot projects around multi-gigabit optical networks. More and more cities and regions have announced plans to build "multi-gigabit cities."

For example, Beijing released the "Action Plan for the 'Capital of Optical Networks, City of Multi-Gigabit' (2023-2025)," leading the communication infrastructure to evolve and upgrade towards "multi-gigabit optical networks" in the form of policy documents for the first time nationwide. Shanghai issued the "Action Plan for Further Promoting the Construction of New Infrastructure (2023-2026)," planning to preliminarily build globally recognized dual multi-gigabit cities symbolized by 5G-A and multi-gigabit optical networks by the end of 2026. The Saudi Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT) announced a partnership with Huawei to build a "10 Gbps Society," supporting Saudi Arabia's digital transformation goals under the "2030 Vision" by constructing ultra-high-speed broadband infrastructure and enhancing the country's competitiveness in global digital infrastructure. It is easy to see that the trend toward ubiquitous multi-gigabit is unstoppable and becoming more urgent.

Why 50G PON? Technological iteration drives network upgrade.

The upgrade of the network requires continuous innovation and iteration of technology to support it. On the ship heading towards the "multi-gigabit new continent," 50G PON is undoubtedly the propeller and sail that provides the driving force.

Omdia explains that first of all, cloud-network convergence is the key to the future network, and 50G PON not only provides a 5-fold increase in bandwidth compared to 10G PON but also a 100-fold reduction in latency. It provides a deterministic business experience for cloud applications, helping operators integrate the real world with cloud applications. Operations such as uploading or downloading data to or from the cloud are complex and time-consuming. 50G PON supports multi-gigabit cloud storage services, providing a usage experience indistinguishable from local storage. For network automation and containerization technologies, 50G PON supports on-demand scaling and industrial-grade protection, enabling client access to digital applications and transitioning from dedicated line technology to fiber-to-the-machine. Park networks are also seeking to migrate local data to intelligent clouds, and 50G PON can support multi-gigabit all-optical park networks, running enterprise-level cloud network computing applications.

At the same time, in the early stages of PON technology, FTTH (fiber-to-the-home) could only provide "best-effort" broadband services. 50G PON replaces high performance with low latency and deterministic experience guarantees, suitable for different scenarios such as advanced factories, smart cities, and smart parks. For example, in a fully optical factory, 50G PON supports functions such as automatic optical inspection (AOI), audit workstations, and security monitoring by providing high-bandwidth real-time industrial cameras, network slices with latency less than 10 ms, and multimode integration, greatly improving operational efficiency. In the field of traffic monitoring in smart cities, 50G PON supports the comprehensive deployment of a large number of cameras through ubiquitous multi-gigabit access and can reserve bandwidth for city management scale expansion. Digital applications in smart parks will continue to drive the popularity of multi-gigabit Wi-Fi access, accelerating the deployment of Wi-Fi 7.

In addition, intelligent management can bring continuous high performance and quality of experience (QoE). Traditional ODN (optical distribution network) maintenance is difficult, and weak optical signals lead to poor experiences. Advanced visual intelligent ODN can solve these problems properly. By deploying intelligent splitters to replace traditional splitters, deploying artificial intelligence and intelligent operation platforms at central offices or convergence points, it is possible to shorten 90% of fault location time, achieve positioning accuracy of less than 2 km, identify redundant resources and faults. A interviewed operator stated that this solution increased customer stickiness, reduced churn rate, and achieved a quick return on investment