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KT To Launch 100Mbps WDM-PON-based FTTH Service In April 2005/03/25 By Hong Ki-beom KT, the largest communication carrier in Korea, plans to launch the fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) service next month via wavelength division multiplexing-passive optical networks (WDM-PONs), the first commercial FTTH service in the world. Industry sources said on Thursday that KT would kick off WDM-PON-based FTTH service to individual subscribers next month at the earliest that allows users to exchange mobile multimedia data in real time at a speed of 100Mbps, both for upstream and downstream. "The company will start with fiber-to-the-pole (FTTP) service, a pseudo-FTTH service, over WDM-PONs. Although it may be difficult to fully guarantee exchange of multimedia data at speeds of 100Mbps, upstream and downstream, in early stages, the FTTP service will mark the first commercialization of FTTH technology," said a senior executive at KT. "Investment efficiency, however, will be the most important factor for wide penetration of FTTH service," he added. For this initiative, KT plans to install WDM-PON infrastructure by August this year in its first phase, procuring WDM-PON equipment of Novera Optics that can accommodate 42,000 circuits, worth 13.6 billion won (approximately 13.6 million dollars). If the efficiency of investment in FTTP infrastructure is proved to be high, KT will continue making second phase procurement of FTTH gears in value of 20 billion won. The executive also said that the company was now conducting tests of various PON gears including giga bit Ethernet (GE)-PON equipment to select their suppliers. "We will be able to provide FTTH service to households soon in its real sense with a data transmission speed of 100Mbps," he added. In a bidding for purchasing GE-PON gears, 16 firms including LG Electronics, Samwoo Telecommunications, Locus Networks, Sunghwa Telecommunications, Dasan Networks, Tellion, Millinet, Corecess, Samsung Electronics, ETronix, and Comtec Systems reportedly submitted information on proposals. Based on their proposals, KT will conduct benchmarking tests of their products by early next month, and select preferred candidate by the end of May of this year. "As it took initiative in broadband Internet service, Korea will be able to move ahead of other countries in the next-generation network equipment market. We anticipate that commercial production of network equipment and government strategy for boosting FTTH service will get on track in the near future," said the CEO of a communication equipment maker.