Vodafone UK and Nokia trial 50Gbps FTTP broadband in their Newbury lab

Broadband and mobile giant Vodafone UK has today revealed a bit more information on their recent trial of 50G Passive Optical Network (50G PON) architecture, which was first hinted at yesterday during the soft launch of their new 8Gbps broadband package via their existing 10Gbps capable XGS-PON powered full fibre (FTTP) network.

A number of UK broadband operators have, in recently years, conducted very early trials of 50G PON technology, including ITS Technology (here), Openreach (here) and Netomnia (here) among others. In fact the latter has even launched a limited commercial solution for business customers. More recently CityFibre, which is one of the networks that supplies Vodafone, has even talked about deploying it by around 2032 (here).

At present most operators using Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) lines are already harnessing XGS-PON technology, where the ‘X’ stands for 10, the ‘G’ for Gigabits’, the ‘S’ for symmetric speed and PON means Passive Optical Network. In the real-world this tends to support advertised broadband speeds of up to around 7-8Gbps (overheads and other caveats make it difficult to deliver a clean 10Gbps).

By comparison 50G PON technology has only very recently begun to creep into the commercial market via a number of suppliers, one of which is Nokia. Vodafone has now become the latest to test this, albeit in a laboratory environment at their Newbury HQ in Berkshire.

The trial at Vodafone’s Newbury lab demonstrated that current and future fibre technologies can operate simultaneously on the existing fixed network (multi-PON). Specifically, Vodafone and Nokia validated that the future-ready 50G PON architecture can operate alongside the more widely deployed GPON and XGS-PON technologies.

“This extra capacity enables multiple customers in the same area to use multi-gigabit broadband simultaneously while the risk of any busy-hour slowdown is reduced,” said a spokesperson for Vodafone. But the operator points out that “initial demand” for such connectivity is “likely to come from clusters of enterprise customers in locations such as business parks and from mobile backhaul connecting masts to the core network in busy urban areas“, rather than homes.

The multi-PON approach lets Vodafone increase capacity more efficiently by only having to upgrade small interface cards and ports at a fibre access node (similar to a local exchange), which avoids having to swap out large pieces of hardware such as shelfs or chassis, or fibre connections feeding people’s homes and premises. But anybody taking packages faster than 10Gbps would need new kit to be able to handle that.

Finally, the trial also validated advanced synchronisation for mobile backhaul, ensuring base stations transmit customer traffic in step to minimise delays and signal jitter over 25GS-PON and 50G PON. Vodafone and Nokia demonstrated phase synchronisation using Telecom Boundary Clock (T-BC) – a hardware clock that coordinates network traffic – and Synchronous Ethernet (SyncE), while maintaining a high capacity and high performing connection.

Gavin Young, Head of Fixed Access Networks at Vodafone, said:

“This successful trial shows we can future-proof our existing fibre broadband network, whether its AI agents and machines conversing or people using immersive applications. It also allows us to target upgrades where they are needed most, increasing capacity at lower cost, and focus on improving customer experience.”

At this point somebody usually comes out of the woodwork to complain about how we don’t need these sorts of speeds today (similar gripes have existed since the dialup days). But network operators don’t build their networks for today, they build them to meet future demands. One absolutely truth about the internet is that data demand is constantly rising and so networks need to think years in advance.

Not to mention that 50G PON isn’t only about the speeds that could be delivered directly to end-users. Vodafone and other operator will also use it to underpin their existing networks, making them more cost efficient at delivering capacity to multiple premises. The fact you can offer speeds beyond c.10Gbps to end-users in the future is a bonus, once the demand and core network capacity exist to support that.

Vodafone said they’re aiming to conduct further tests of multi-PON technologies, including live deployments, across their existing UK and also pan-European fibre footprint during 2026 and 2027. In the UK this will be reliant on support from their network partners, such as CityFibre, Openreach and CommunityFibre. Out of those three, only CityFibre has revealed a UK roll-out strategy for 50G PON.