What Providers Should Know About 25G PON

Dell’Oro Group recently raised its forecast for the next generation of passive optical network (PON) technology, known as 25G PON, and expects its revenues to triple between year-end 2023 and year-end 2025. As Stefaan Vanhastel, head of marketing and innovation for fixed networks for Nokia, explained most service providers are looking at 25G PON as an opportunity to generate additional revenue from business customers. Some businesses will prefer 25G PON because they are used to 10 Gbps symmetrical service and, with 13% overhead, XGS-PON doesn’t support full 10 Gbps speeds. The cost of 25G PON equipment is less than two-and-a-half times the cost of XGS-PON, which makes it more cost-efficient on a per-gigabit basis. Deploying 25G PON is also relatively easy for providers that already have PON infrastructure in place because 25G PON can be deployed on top of, and co-exist with, previously deployed PON infrastructure because it can use a different wavelength.