UK ISP Ogi Reveal Plan to Trial Nokia’s 50Gbps Broadband Technology
Not content with becoming the first broadband ISP and network builder to deploy Nokia’s 25G PON technology commercially in the UK in 2023 (here), Ogi has now revealed that they’re planning to be “one of the first trialists” to harness the company’s 50G PON technology in 2025 too.
Just to recap. The network operator has so far covered a total of 100,000 premises RFS (4th Jan 2024) with their full fibre (FTTP) broadband network – most of them residential – in Wales up to the end of 2023. In addition, they’re home to over 20,000 customers (13th May 2024), which is up from 10,000 on 4th Jan 2024.
Until recently Ogi’s infrastructure had been deployed using dual optic combination line cards, which enabled them to support both XGS-PON and GPON (common full fibre standards) simultaneously on any port of the Optical Line Terminal (OLT), which also enables them to be fairly flexible when it comes to future upgrades.
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This was followed, at the end of 2022, by the provider’s move to deploy Nokia’s 25G Passive Optical Network (25G PON) fibre technology onto its network, albeit initially aimed squarely at business customers (e.g. those around parts of Cardiff and other areas). This can happily co-exist with GPON and XGS-PON on the same infrastructure (it requires no changes to the outside plant). But it looks like they’re about to go beyond even this.
Justin Leese, Ogi’s Chief Technology and Operations Officer, said:
“After our successful launch of 25GPON on the Ogi network last year, looking forward to being one of the first trialists on 50G PON next year – with Nokia for service providers announcing their product today at Connected Britain. Bringing world leading connectivity to Wales once again.”
We should point out that Ogi won’t be the only FTTP network operator to adopt 50G PON technology. The CEO of Netomnia (YouFibre, Brsk), Jeremy Chelot, revealed at the start of 2024 (here) that they were also planning to deploy the solution, albeit via ADTRAN’s technologies rather than Nokia. Such moves tend to be all about future proofing and efficient network delivery, although they can also lead to some shockingly fast broadband packages (e.g. YouFibre already offers a 7-8Gbps service).
The usual catch in all this is the difficulty of actually being able to harness all that speed when online. Most internet services still seem to struggle to harness more than 1000Mbps, assuming they can do even that, while the multi-gigabit domain remains more of a luxury (Why Buying Gigabit Broadband Doesn’t Always Deliver 1Gbps). But technological evolution rarely waits for the slowest users.
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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Another vanity project for Ogi, just like 25G. They need to focus on rolling out their network then filling it with customers. Not on marketing efforts like this.
Meanwhile, dinosaur company BT/Openreach still deploy legacy GPON and the BT fans defend it. The rest, even VM’s NexFibre at least use XGS-PON, which BT could have switched to a long, long time ago instead of continuing to deploy/connect a legacy product.
Just a trial. I am sure you were posting the same comments about someone else when Openreach trialled 25GPON in 2021, weren’t you?
GPON is selling well. In the real world big companies don’t use whatever the latest technology is all the time they use what works and is profitable.
If the customer wants what only XGSPON can provide they can vote with their feet.
I am guessing you can’t vote with your feet which is why so bitter about it.
as has to be pointed out to you every time (assuming you’re the “anonymous” who will call me “BT Ivor”) – the UK’s largest network operator has to make different decisions to those with a fraction of a fraction of the footprint, and given their market leading takeup and rock solid financials, Openreach seem to be doing exactly what their customers and end users want.
While other firms have to use speed as a gimmick, Openreach just gets on with the job.
openreach can do 1.8gb ( ee offer 1.6gb ) which for most is way plenty enough. theyve announced april 2025 to install synchronous in some areas in april 2025. no doubt there build targets and costs have been more important and also guessing the price of xpon module is now nearly the same price as gpon module. good to have a choice and competition
They could’ve just deployed symmetrical packages instead of just more download
I find ironic that companies are investing money into gigabit broadband, when fast megabit broadband is terrible and mobile broadband is worse.
I guess it means they can argue that their PON network is free of contention.
But there’s no way that they’re going to give an 800G uplink to an OLT with 16 x 50G PON connections – so all they’ve done is push the contention up to their OLT.
Yeah, but surely that’s no bad thing. It’s easier to manage contention in aggregate.
Plus, I’m sure it’ll let them advertise… actually, not sure. In principle a PON could offer 2x 10Gbps Ethernet ports upstream?
Ogi are still uplinking many OLTs at 4×10G LAG. They have mikrotik in the network and generally it’s a bit of a state. This is just a gimmick.
Not to mention their IX uplinks port speed. Pure marketing and nothing more, because reality will be a split of 1:2048 or even bigger.
Waste of resources, who’s going to need 50Gbps downloading speeds?
Far better to ensure everyone has a minimum of 1Gbps first at a cost that’s affordable.
It’s exactly the same amount of effort to deploy something that can do gigabit speeds as something that can do 50Gb, the difference being that if you offer flagship multi-gig services those customers can cross-subsidise everybody else, giving you that affordable cost that you’re after.
Nobody is missing out on fibre because Ogi were talking to Nokia about 50G PON.
This is for businesses, that’s 4x10Gbit circuits or 48x1Gbit circuits with no contention, less kit needed for more connections equals more money for Ogi
Openreach just agreed a Project Gigabit contract valued at just under 20 grand per premises. The cost of this trial to Ogi is likely less than the cost of one of those premises.
If you want to talk potential waste of resources look no further that getting everyone a minimum of a gigabit at affordable prices when the costs get into that territory, nearly all on the taxpayer.
Good grief there’s some miserable sods posting comments here of late. Obviously whilst yes, 50GPON to a single customer is possible, what all bar one of you missed is that this increases capacity. It is NOT solely about the maximum to a single customer.
Also love that any company trying to innovate is balked at every opportunity. No wonder we are so far behind!
So they just got 45 million pounds from the public sector and they announce 50Gb broadband trials next year. That is public money well spent. All the execs will probably get new company cars and big bonuses.
What’s the bet next year the headline will be they have run out of money again and network build has stopped.
It is a vanity project. We know speed on fibre is virtually unlimited. 250Gb and 400Gb connections are now common, maybe not on PON but still who really cares.
If they said they were offering 1Gb broadband for £10 for the next 10 years then I would be impressed.
well said.
I seem to remember a degree of negativity when they announced 25GPON. Such a shame when this is about innovation and proving new technologies which is surely a good thing for the UK. Something the incumbent used to be proud to do but is now content with lowest common denominator.
Their 25GPON service has actual customers including Tramshed Tech and WhisperTV ((who have just supported the TV coverage of the Paralympics from their Cardiff studio). See here https://youtu.be/gmoXQz0-NaY?si=IkC3pC8-CSMXwDCQ
50GPON again is for B2B, not residential and has the potential to offer a lower cost alternative to business customers who would otherwise have to fork out for 10G EAD’s or OSA. Some application and customers will of course need, or demand P2P fibre but many will be happy to take the saving.