News

20 April 2009

 

3S to supply components to France’s EPOD project for FTTH and metro

3S Photonics of Nozay, France (which makes laser chips, optical discrete modules and components for telecom networks), together with its partners, have won a competitive bid from France’s National Research Agency (ANR) for the 2-year industrial research project EPOD - Enhanced PON (passive optical networks) using OF DM (orthogonal frequency division multiplexing) modulation format - which began in early February. EPOD is the French equivalent of the European project ALPHA (launched in January) in which 3S is also involved.

The EPOD project is led by Orange Labs (the R&D division of the French telecom provider) and also gathers 3S and academic partners including LISIF (Laboratories of Electronics and Electromagnetism – L2E of the Paris region) and a research team from XLIM (a research institute held jointly between University of Limoges and CNRS).

EPOD is dedicated mainly to access (fiber-to-the-home, FTTH) and metropolitan telecom markets (urban connections of 200-300km).

Such networks will face increased customer demand for faster and higher-speed broadband access due to the emergence of new services such as triple-play bundles or ultra-high-definition video (UHDV), HD video-on-demand, video conferencing, interactive online gaming etc. According to the EPOD project’s forecast, FTTH is due to reach 12% of total broadband connections in France by the end of 2012 (compared to less than 1% at the end of 2007).

“The EPOD project is part of the theme VERSO - Future Networks and Services - of the National Research Agency,” says 3S board member & chief technology officer Didier Sauvage. “Its mission is to design next-generation telecom networks based on optical fiber by associating new-generation optical components with new frequency modulation formats.” It aims to generate low-cost, ultra-high-capacity broadband access for future needs, he explains.

This performance can be enabled by implementing new network architectures such as time division multiplexing (TDM) or wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) PON, combining new optical components using the OFDM modulation format derived from radio transmission to increase optical telecom network bit rates.

OFDM enhances the spectral efficiency of transmitted signals, which become more resistant to chromatic dispersion. This enables significant cost reduction by using optoelectronic components that can provide data rates of more than 40Gb/s with an intrinsic bandwidth of just 10GHz.

Orange Labs and 3S will be in charge of working on the system architecture. In particular, 3S will supply optical transmitter modules (lasers) and receivers (photodiodes) with good linearity for avoiding noise distortion. The components will be tested by Orange Labs on target architectures based on TDM or WDM.

The EPOD project will also benefit from LISIF’s expertise in trans-impedance amplifiers (TIAs). The XLIM team will be in charge of system modeling with the OFDM modulation format.

The project involves three phases:

• analysis of market requirements and specifications;
• two prototype runs, to be tested by Orange Labs; and
• validation of the components' compatibilities with future networks.

3S says that its goal is to provide high-quality optical products, ready to equip telecom networks. In addition, in future these applications developed for EPOD could be extended to long-haul terrestrial and submarine optical networks, the firm adds.

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