Siemens Communications Inc. wants to help end the shortage of BPON CPE that has slowed the deployment of the ATM-based version of passive optical networking technology to date. So the company, which is the global leader in DSL CPE, recently added six models of BPON CPE to its portfolio.
The Siemens ONT/ONU line includes models for single-family residences, businesses and multidwelling housing units. These products, which will be demonstrated at SUPERCOMM next month and will be generally available by then, support SIP; have an integrated RF return channel; include power management lifeline services via battery backup and battery monitoring, and are encased in hardened enclosures for outdoor environments.
Because Siemens is a leading CPE vendor, the company has the capacity to deliver reliable equipment at the production scale service providers demand, says Patrick Fitzgerald, vice president of broadband marketing at Siemens Communications.
Fitzgerald would not provide pricing for the equipment. When asked how Siemens’ entry into the BPON CPE market would affect the cost of such equipment, he said that Siemens, relative to scale, understands the price curve that CPE must follow so service providers can reach profitability with new services more quickly. But he added: “I don’t want to give the impression out there that we’re breaking the price curve.”
Kevin Walsh, vice president of marketing at Calix, with which Siemens is working on interoperability, noted in the same interview: “Siemens knows very, very well that once you decouple either end of the line and make it standard compliant … that’s when the price curve kicks in”
As part of its entrée into the BPON space, Siemens is emphasizing that its end user solutions are interoperable with multiservice access equipment from Calix, which is the one player in the BPON network infrastructure space that doesn’t offer CPE as part of its product mix, says Walsh. Calix came out with a BPON blade for its Calix C7 multiservice access platform in February. Walsh says its BPON OLT solution is in about six networks now, but declined to name the network operators involved. He said Siemens will provide the CPE for these deployments.
Of course, BPON became a hot industry topic a few years ago when Verizon Communications Inc. revealed plans to build a widespread FTTP network based on the passive optical technology. AFC/Tellabs and Motorola provide Verizon with the BPON gear.
BPON, like ADSL and other technologies that came before it, will evolve from an early phase in which a single vendor provides both the CPE and networks-side equipment to move of a multivendor scenario in which different vendors will provide the CPE and network access gear, Fitzgerald and Walsh say. Right now, they say, we’re at the end of that early phase of deployment.
