Chorus and Nokia have announced they've successfully demonstrated a 25 gigabit per second (Gbps) fibre broadband connection in Aotearoa.
According to the telecom infrastructure company, the trial is part of Chorus' commitment to "bring the best technology to New Zealand" so Kiwis can benefit from ultra-fast fibre connectivity amid surging data demands.
The demonstration at Chorus' Fibre Lab in Auckland achieved a 21.4 Gbps download speed. To put that into perspective, the likes of Vodafone and Spark currently offer fibre connections of up to 1 Gbps while some providers like MyRepublic offer up to 8 Gbps connections aimed at gamers.
"With the enhanced capacities of 25-gigabit passive optical networking (25G PON), Chorus will be able to offer higher speed data services to wholesale broadband providers and, in turn, to residential and business customers," the company said.
The 25G PON isn't commercially available yet, but Chorus expects large businesses to see "great benefit" when it is launched, with the increased speeds and capacity allowing them to grow low latency cloud connectivity as well as internet of things (IoT) and metaverse applications.
"When we started our ultra-fast broadband journey, we knew GPON was a future-proofed technology," Chorus' chief technology officer, Ewen Powell, said.
"In 2020, we proved that with the launch of Hyperfibre which offers Kiwi businesses and high-end residential users symmetrical speeds up to 8 Gbps. Today, we're delighted to be partnering with Nokia to show the next step on the journey."
According to Powell, one of the benefits of 25G PON is the "ease with which it will integrate" into Aotearoa's existing fibre infrastructure, enabling service providers to upgrade customers on demand.
"It will play an important role in supporting New Zealand’s future connectivity fabric."
Nokia's 25G PON solution is based on the Quillion chipset and can be quickly and easily deployed to existing networks, Chorus said.
"As the first operator to launch symmetric 8 Gbps, Chorus pioneered super-fast services with their Hyperfibre package," Stefaan Vanhastel, CTO of fixed networks at Nokia said.
"In this demonstration Chorus has shown both how easy it is to activate 25G PON and the scale and capacity it provides to support ever increasing data demands."
