26 Jul 2022

CityFibre taps Nokia to build 10Gbps broadband network

Nokia has agreed a 10-year XGS-PON broadband equipment agreement with full-fibre network operator CityFibre including access nodes for its nationwide network of purpose-built fibre exchanges.

The Lightspan access nodes being supplied by Nokia as part of the agreement will be used by CityFibre to offer its wholesale customers multigig residential broadband up to 10Gb/s and higher bandwidth services including providing backhaul for mobile networks.

Last year, CityFibre launched its first 800 Gbps backbone ring as part of its £4bn ‘Gigabit City' investment programme that will see it develop an open access network which will connect up to 8 million premises in 285 cities, towns and villages across the UK.

John Franklin, chief technology officer at CityFibre, said: “CityFibre is committed to building a Full Fibre network that is ”Better By Design”, providing our partners and their customers with the fastest and most reliable services at the best value. By partnering with Nokia we have enlisted a trusted and market-leading technology vendor to help support a nationwide 10Gbps XGS-PON technology deployment programme.”

According to Nokia, by using its Quillion chipset, the same access nodes can be used for both XGS-PON and 25G PON (25Gb/s) on the same fibre, should CityFibre wish to do this in the future. Successful delivery of 25G PON for 5G transport using the same Lightspan access node has already been tested by CityFibre, Nokia and the University of Glasgow during a trial undertaken at the end of 2021.