Nokia said that Openreach will deploy its fibre solutions to help meet its target of bringing ultra-fast and reliable broadband access to 20 million homes across the UK by the mid-to-late 2020s.
The roll-out with Nokia focuses on deploying GPON and XGS-PON fibre access technologies to expand Openreach’s fiber-rich network to reach 4.5 million premises by the end of March 2021. It’s also capable of delivering up to 10Gb/s symmetrical broadband speeds in the future, in areas where demand for additional capacity is required, it’s claimed. Nokia’s solution supports a smooth evolution from current traditional deployments to virtualised access-network control and management (SDAN – Software Defined Access Networking) by software upgrade.
The agreement is another key milestone in Nokia’s extensive partnership with Openreach to deliver multi-Gigabit, next generation PON connectivity to customers and builds on an extensive end-to-end network framework that has been established over the past years. This includes G.fast technology which currently allows Openreach to offer 100’s Mb/s to homes in areas where fiber is not available yet.
Openreach CEO Clive Selley said: “We’re accelerating our full fibre build to deliver an ultrafast, ultra-reliable and futureproof broadband network throughout the UK. This new digital platform will help our economy to bounce back more quickly from the Covid-19 pandemic – enabling people to continue work from home, and millions of businesses to operate seamlessly online for decades to come. Right now, we’re making the new network available to around 32,000 homes and businesses every week, and Nokia’s innovative solutions are helping us to build it better, broader and faster. Our partnership with Nokia will be critical in helping us to upgrade the nation and hit our target of reaching four and a half million premises by the end of March 2021.”
Openreach Network Technologies Director Peter Bell said: “Nokia is already making a major contribution to Openreach’s fibre-to-the-Premises rollout, including in the build of our first fully fibre city, Salisbury. We’re confident that Nokia will continue to be a strong partner in helping us meet our ambition throughout the UK.”
Sandra Motley, President of Fixed Networks at Nokia said: “Ensuring everybody has access to broadband services is critical, especially during unprecedented times like these where it has become the lifeline to millions working, handling healthcare and learning from home. Our fibre solutions will help Openreach bring enhanced ultra-broadband services to millions of new customers across the UK today while our 10G PON technology will help to future proof their network against whatever may come next.”
