Cityfibre Hints at 10Gbps for UK Homes After Calix AXOS Upgrade

Cityfibre, which is rolling out a Dark Fibre and FTTP broadband ISP network across urban parts of the UK, has announced a new deal with Calix to deploy the “world’s only” Software Defined Access (SDA) operating system across its network. They claim it could help deliver 10Gbps to “every home,” maybe even 100Gbps.

As it stands the operator’s existing network, particularly their joint £500m deployment with Vodafone to cover a “minimum” of 1 million UK homes in up to 12 of their existing cities or towns by 2021 (here), is expected to deliver speeds of up to 1Gbps (1000Mbps+) to those who want it. At present there’s really no need, other than marketing, to deliver anything faster to homes but Cityfibre also have one eye on the distant future.

In keeping with that today’s announcement of their decision to implement Calix’s AXOS (E9-2) platform makes the claim that this will help to give them the capability of “delivering parallel 10 gigabits per second (Gbps) connections to every home and business, with further potential for speeds of up to 100Gbps.”

Once deployed, Cityfibre claims that they will operate a truly open-access Software Defined Networking (SDN) ecosystem. “Our carrier, mobile operator and ISP customers will gain direct access to unprecedented levels of programmability, network intelligence and automation – akin to owning the network, but without the upfront capital risk,” said the operator. But you need more than SDN to improve physical speeds.

As part of that the operator also anticipates being able to leverage newer technologies like NG-PON2, which in 2016 gained consent from the ITU as a new Gigabit Passive Optical Network standard (here); one where each wavelength is capable of providing a subscriber with optical access up to a rate of 10Gbps (2.5Gbps upstream). BT and Huawei were the first in the UK to play around with this in 2016 (here).

Cityfibre states that they will also now be able to “radically reduce network operating complexity and costs,” while deploying future services at “exceptional speed“. A useful bit of future proofing for such a network.

Greg Mesch, CEO of CityFibre, said:

“In Calix we have found a like-minded ally, an innovator that is pushing the boundaries of what is possible when intelligent software meets fibre-only infrastructure. Our partnership enables us to unleash the full power and potential of our fibre networks, creating the nation’s fastest, smartest and most accessible, digital communications platform.

The ability to scale services up to 100 gigabits per second, while driving customer experience to new levels, highlights the inadequacies of connections that are passed off as fibre today. It also shows that not all full fibre networks are equal and that, as an alternative network builder, CityFibre’s commitment to the UK’s digital future goes far beyond simply putting fibre in the ground.”

Michael Weening, Calix’s Executive VP of Field Operations, said:

“The Calix and CityFibre visions of a software defined access future are perfectly aligned. CityFibre built its network from the beginning to take advantage of all that a fibre infrastructure can enable, while we built AXOS with the intelligence to take that foundation to the next level.

With AXOS, CityFibre can more rapidly deliver new products, services and features to the market, further distancing itself from legacy competitive offerings that fail to enable true market differentiation. As we continue to innovate on the AXOS platform, the continued speed, agility and efficiencies we enable will allow CityFibre and its partners to change the UK’s broadband market forever.”

We should point out that other UK fibre optic networks (e.g. B4RN, Hyperoptic and Gigaclear) are also either testing (example) or talking about 10Gbps being a possible service for homes of the future, although as yet there isn’t really any demand for such a service in the residential connectivity market (it wouldn’t be particularly cheap either).

Today you’d still have trouble maxing out a 1Gbps connection online, not to mention the impact of irritatingly slow home WiFi and the fact that most computer kit only has 1Gbps capable Ethernet ports (an issue for the 10Gbps era).

Of course all this talk of multi-Gigabit speeds will no doubt give those still struggling on a handful of Megabits (or less) in isolate rural communities another reason to despair. Sadly progress, particularly in more commercially viable urban areas, rarely waits for the slowest to catch up and this is one area where the Government and Ofcom could still do more (they’re trying).