China Telecom has been migrating from ADSL to fiber technologies like EPON and GPON to meet increasing broadband subscriber and bandwidth demands, piloting EPON in 2005 and making it a core access technology due to its maturity and interoperability. They aim to accelerate FTTH deployment through projects like "Broadband China, Optical City" to reach 100 million FTTH homes by 2015 using EPON and GPON, while also starting rollout of 10G-EPON to improve bandwidth for multi-dwelling units.

1. EPON Technology and its Application
in China Telecomʹs Access Network Migration
Shen Chengbin
shencb@sttri.com.cn
Shanghai Research Institute of China Telecom
April, 2012

2. Increasing BB subs in China and Technology
Evolution
180 45%
160 156 40%
140 35%
126
120 115 30%
103 100
100 25%
83 84
80 20%
66 67
60 52 52 15%
38 37
40 10%
26
20 5%
0 0%
2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011
total Subs (DSL+FTTX) ADSL Subs Growth Rate (total) Growth Rate (ADSL)
•The immigration from ADSL2+ to FTTx even to FTTH is accelerated
•The gap between TOTAL and ADSL in earlier years is Ethernet based FTTB
•The gap between TOTAL and ADSL in recent years is PON based FTTX
•China broadband subscriber installed base is estimated to reach 180 million ports by
2014 Page 2

3. China's relative lower BB Penetration
China BB Household Penetration
•Compared with developed coutries, China has lower BB
household penetration (<40%) ;
•Great development potential and market opportunity!
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4. CT Broadband Access Subscriber Growth
76.8
63.5
53.5
44.3
35.7
28.4
21.0
14.2
7.4
2.5

5. China Telecom piloted and promoted EPON/GPON
ecosystem in China
 in 2004, Both IEEE802.3ah and ITU‐T G.984 were released. As a
fixedline operator, China Telecom pays a lot of attention to any
progress in FTTX technologies
 after a comprehensive evaluation, China Telecom considered EPON
as more mature. e.g. EPON began massive deployments in Japan and
South Korea.
 in 2005, China Telecom started EPON field trial in 4 provinces to
learn how to deploy EPON
 EPON Interoperability is critical for the success and deployment of
EPON widely, so China Telecom started IOP research in 2005.
 Some technical issues were solved such as:
 MPCP registration Data encryption
 ONU authentication: Report manner & DBA implementation
 Logical ID Multicast
 MAC based
 ONU remote management: using CTC Specific OAM extension (MIB,
alarm, performance)
 In Q1‐2007 CTC achieved large scale and all‐round chip and system
EPON IOP the first time in the world (3 chip vendors, 10 system
vendors)

6. CTC Broadband Technology Migration
Milestones
All these technologies will co-
 Before 2007, ADSL/ADSL2+
exist in CT access network
was the dominant 100M
10G-EPON
technology
 In 2007, CTC and other main
GPON
operators started massively
deployment of fiber access
EPON
based on ʺFIBER‐IN &
FIBER‐OUTʺ strategy after 50M
China Telecom achieved the
all‐around and large‐scale
IOP of EPON
 GPON and 10G‐EPON
10M ADSL2+
began deployment after
ADSL
EPON
2000 2005 2007 2009 2010
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7. EPON is used in variant deployment scenarios in China
Telecom
 Based on comprehensive analysis on TCO，bandwidth capbility,
technol. Trend, etc., China Telecom adopt different deployment
mode to local conditions:
Residential customer, urban Business buildings, Urban areas
areas
 Green field (new area) Cover all the new business
• Stop deploying feeder & •buildings by fiber
•FTTO or FTTB
distribution copper wires
• FTTB (PON) + Ethernet
before 2010 Rural areas
• FTTH since 2010
 Brown field (existing area) Principally stop deploying feeder
• (preferred) FTTB (PON)＋ copper wires
DSL with copper wire length fiber to the village plus DSL
< 500m before 2010 •EPON (preferred)
• Bandwidth target: 8-20Mb/s •P2P
• some residential cell were Bandwidth target: >4Mb/s
upgraded by FTTH since
2010

8. Fiber‐in & Copper‐out history
from FTTB/N to FTTH
From 2008 to 2010, through EPON
deployment in FTTB/N architecture:
1. Customers’ access bandwidth improved
significantly
2. EPON equipments and ODN
technologies were improved, and China
Telecom completed OLT distribution in key
network points
in 2010, PON is mature enough
and ready for FTTH mass
deploymen:
•equipment price
•engining
•technician
•IT system
•service process
and China Telecom changed to
FTTH leading 8

9. Chinaʹs EPON Ecosystem
ASIC Optics
 China Telecom has played key role in China EPON ecosysme
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10. access network's technology and architecture is being changed
PON FTTH(PON) Ethernet
1% Ethernet 5% 10%
19%
FTTB(PON)
26%
DSL DSL
80% 59%
2007 Q1, 2011

11. CTC announced “Broadband China, Optical City”
project
 On 16 Feb, 2011, China Telecom announced the majestic project to accelerate
the FTTH deployment
– In three years, CTC will complete fiberization of all cities’ BB
networks to achieve the target of 100M to home, 1G to building
– by the end of 12th 5‐Years (2015), China Telecom‘s FTTH‐passed
homes will reach 100+ Million marker

12. FTTx Development Strategy, progress and target
Strategy
 Increase FTTH share in FTTx deployment to provide 20M
for urban residential users and 50~100M for HDTV and/or
multi channel IPTV users starting 2010
 Speed up FTTO deployment in commercial buildings to
provide 100M~1G bandwidth for business users
Progress and plan
 FTTH home pass (new): 2010: 10M; 2011: 30M; 2012: ~25M,
 FTTH subscribers (new): 2010: 1M; 2011: 5M; 2012:
maybe>10M
 FTTB/N home pass (new): 2009: 7M; 2010: 10M; 2011:
10M;2012:maybe >7M
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13. China Telecom uses EPON as a multiple-play platform
EPON is used to bear variant services with low cost in
China Telecom's networks
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14. Development & Application of 10G‐EPON Technol.
2010.11release XG-PON1 standard
Commercial chipset and optical TX:
Q2,2012
Commercial deployment: end fo
10G 2012
GPON
GPON XG-PON1 XG-PON2
Asymmetric Symmetric, no
plan
Asymmetric & WDM
Symmetric PON
EPON 10G-EPON
IEEE802.3av release in Sep, 2009
Commercial chipset and optical TX
will be ok soon
Commercial deployment: Q1,2010
2009 2010 2011 2012
 China Telecom deeply involved in 10G‐EPON standardization and industry
improvement. in Apr. 2011, CTC achieved 10G‐EPON interoperability
 10G‐EPON or XG‐PON1 will be deployed first to improve MDU’s uplink
bandwidth to achieve FTTH‐like capacity for each subscriber
 More than 500 ports 10G‐EPON fed MDU are already in operation in China
Telecom networks

15. China Telecom actively take part in PON
standardization
 China Telecom deeply involved in IEEE802.3av and IEEE1904.1
 China Telecom promoted EPON in BBF together partners
– TR‐200: Using EPON in the context of TR‐101
– WT‐287: Optical Layer Management
 China Telecom contributes also to FSAN and ITU‐T to GPON
standards, and some key contributions were adopted
 China Telecom pushes China PON industry in CCSA (China
Communication Standardizaiton Association) to promote China
Telecomʹs specs to be a Chinese industry standards
– EPON interoperability
– 10G‐EPON
– TDM over EPON and GPON
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16. BTW: China Telecom’s View on GPON
 Now, GPON technology and equipment are mature
enough to meet China Telecom FTTH deployment
requirements
 Massive GPON deployment in FTTH kicked off from
2010 with volume increasing dramatically
 CT will migrate FTTB/N into 10G PON in future (10G
EPON first) as both GPON and EPON do not provide
sufficient bandwidth to meet growing customer
demand
GPON and EPON will co-exist for FTTH deployment in
the next few years.
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