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PON (gigabit passive optical network) is a new technology allowing for Gigabit connectivity via optical cable to individuals houses, apartment buildings and offices. Although there are several bitrates available, the industry is typically deploying 2.5Gbps downstream and 1.25Gbps upstream that is split up between 32 users. This technology is allows for very fast Internet connectivity voice, and video services.
HIGH PACKET RATE
The packet rates in GPON greatly exceed traditional WAN interfaces such as DSL and Cable. Handling the increased packet traffic can put a strain on traditional processor architectures. Freescale provides a robust hardware-based datapath for this product, complete with software drivers that are integrated with Linux.
VOICE QUALITY
In many deployments, GPON is replacing traditional telephones. Users are accustomed to very high voice quality and reliability from their traditional analog telephone lines and traditional data services must continue to work. When GPON is deployed at a home or business, Voice over IP (VoIP) replaces the traditional analog telephone connection. The voice quality and reliability degradations that are so common with some (VoIP) solutions cannot be an issue with GPON deployments, as customers must experience no change in their level of service.
ECHO CANCELLATION
Freescale’s voice quality technologies such as echo cancellation and packet loss concealment have been deployed across millions of ports over the years and have been tested in most of the market-leading labs. The embedded StarCore DSP on the Freescale’s GPON chipsets have sufficient power to meet the real-time demands of our quality VoIP implementation.
Though GPON is a relatively new technology, there are still great market pressures to produce a cost-competitive solution. GPON is being deployed today across the world, but to bring ultra-high-speed services to millions more, the solution must be very cost competitive. The silicon design and verification teams in India played a key role in producing the MSC7120, a market-leading GPON SoC with a high degree of system integration.
INTEROPERATION
As with any WAN technology, interoperation with a variety of equipment is key to a successful deployment. Software that is developed in isolation from a paper standards specification will rarely stand up in a real deployment. To be truly robust, software must of course be standards conformant, as well as hardened in real deploy-ment scenarios demonstrating inter-operation against real equipment.
In February this year, Freescale and Alcatel-Lucent announced an update to their long-standing relationship to advance the GPON market. Vendors will now be able to license key software that has been deployed by Alcatel-Lucent on the MSC7120, thus ensuring a robust systems solution. In addition, Freescale India and Alcatel-Lucent will be offering interoperation services to their customers.
TIME TO MARKET
Finally, as with so many other technologies, helping customers get to market fast is vital.
Freescale India will be supporting an entire systems solution for GPON, including the Linux operating system, drivers, VoIP stacks, and GPON management layers. This total solution benefits from the real-world deployment that has already taken place in the market, and will be enhanced as Freescale introduces new products in our GPON line of products with an ever-increasing level of software and hardware functionality.
Author information
You can reach Rich Cutler at rich.cutler@freescale.com
