Adtran has announced that US operator CenturyLink is using its virtualised optical line terminal (OLT) in a field trial of next-generation access services.

This is the first US deployment of a disaggregated software-defined access (SD-Access) system, the vendor claims. The virtualised OLT can be programmed to deliver different technologies – in this case XGS-PON and NG-PON2 – from the same hardware, creating a more flexible, manageable and scalable access network infrastructure.

BT has made an offer to the UK government to voluntarily provide high-speed broadband to 99 per cent all homes and businesses across the country within five years, which would largely be delivered by Openreach.

The government said it received the offer after it committed to introduce a Universal Service Obligation (USO) through regulation to give every home and business in the UK the right to request a high-speed connection of at least 10Mb/s.

Global carrier GTT Communications has been selected by Jisc, the provider of digital services for the UK research and education community, to provide high-speed internet transit for the Janet network.

One of the leading national research and education networks in the world, Janet supports the innovation, research and learning of approximately 18 million UK college and university users. The Janet network is also the operator in the UK for eduroam, the international wireless roaming service for the education community that supports more than 70 million users around the world.

Vodafone Germany has signed a cooperation agreement with fibre network specialist Deutsche Glasfaser to deploy fibre networks to commercial areas in the city of Düsseldorf.

Deutsche Glasfaser is the largest provider of fibre-to-the-home networks in Germany, and is engaged in a major build-out that will see its footprint expand from an estimated 235,000 households in February 2017 to 450,000 by the end of 2018. The Borken, Münsterland-headquartered company was started by Dutch private investor Reggeborgh and is now majority owned by investment firm KKR.

Call Flow wants to make a name for itself as the first operator in the UK to offer symmetric multi-gigabit access speeds.

The alternative broadband operator has been building out 100Mb/s fibre-to-the cabinet-based services across Southern England via sub-loop unbundling. To allow services to scale further, it has now decided to adopt a fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) strategy based on the XGS-PON architecture.

To this end, Call Flow has chosen XGS-PON equipment from US optical access systems provider Adtran.

ECI has announced four new deployments of its Apollo family of optical systems, including the integrated 400G blade, by customers across Europe in the last few months.

The ability to add 200G wavelengths (and beyond) to existing optical networks can help operators keep ahead of the demand curve. The new ECI deployments are not only proof of market demand for higher capacities, but also that the ECI solution is a strong contender in this space, the company claims.

To provide its member organisations with better peering services, the London Internet Exchange (LINX) has deployed Ciena’s Waveserver stackable data centre interconnect (DCI) platform to connect its data centres throughout London.

LINX has 11 points of presence across London, connecting more than 740 members across more than 70 different countries. By offering its members cost-effective and high-capacity links between its data centres, a large number of international peering partners can exchange traffic more efficiently.

ZTE has completed a commercial trial with China Telecom intended to show how the Chinese operator can combine different legacy technologies with next-generation 10Gb/s systems on its optical access network.

The trial of ZTE’s Combo passive optical network (PON) solution took place in two local networks in Changzhou and Yancheng, in east China’s Jiangsu province. The trial was undertaken jointly with China Telecom’s Jiangsu branch and the China Telecom Beijing Research Institute.

FTTH CONFERENCE 2017, MARSEILLE – NG-PON2 has made the leap into the real world, with the news that Northpower Fibre and Calix have carried out a trial of NG-PON2 equipment in a live service provider network.

Wholesale operator Northpower Fibre operates a fibre to the home (FTTH) in Whangerei, which was deployed as part of the New Zealand government’s Ultra Fast Broadband initiative. Northpower is offering gigabit services today, and anticipates the need to upgrade its network as more customers start to demand such blazing fast speeds.

Moscow-headquartered global carrier Avelacom has significantly reduced the latency across its London to Moscow long-haul network by upgrading the route with equipment from PacketLight Networks.

Avelacom is fast growing international carrier that prides itself on providing highly reliable, low-latency infrastructure – exactly the sort of thing demanded by financial markets for their highly time-sensitive trades.