China Telecom's Shanghai branch Shanghai Telecom plans to deploy the first commercial FTTH network in China using 10G PON technologies, and aims to provide full 1Gbps fiber coverage across Shanghai over the next three years.
Shanghai Telecom has contracted Huawei to help with the rollout, which marks an important step towards making Shanghai China's first gigabit city, the vendor said.
Shanghai Telecom was providing 1Gbps access for 269 communities in the city, and through the deployment aims to increase the average access rate for its network from 50Mbps to 280Mbps by the end of 2018.
The operator is using its high-speed network to offer a range of home broadband services, such as multi-channel 4K video streaming, video calls and conferencing an video-based smart home services.
Under the latest rollout, the company is adopting Huawei optical line terminals (OLT) and optical network terminals (ONT) capable of providing gigabit convergence, 4K video streaming to 16,000 concurrent households over a single subrack, 8K video streaming, VR applications and smart home services.
Separately, Nokia has announced it has secured a contract to deploy millions of ONT home gateways in 29 provinces across China for China Mobile.
China Mobile plans to deploy home gateway units based on Nokia's solution to over 30 million users this year, and use established FTTH networks to extend internet coverage in the home and enable IoT communications between devices and sensors.
"China Mobile is progressing fast as a converged telecommunications operator -- with more than 31 million FTTH subscribers -- and has proven it can successfully leverage its extensive fiber access network to deliver ultra-broadband applications such as 4K TV services and Gigabit access to customers across various provinces.,” IDATE principal analyst Roland Montagne commented.
“With the addition of intelligent home gateway technology, China Mobile will be able to further differentiate its services, providing consumers with enhanced internet coverage in the home and a more seamless experience for connecting various devices and sensors."