Iskratel, Radisys align to deliver carrier-grade software-defined PON solution

An important milestone in enabling operators to deploy carrier-grade, virtualised PON solutions has been reached as Iskratel, the European provider of broadband access solutions, has launched a complete, integrated Software-Defined PON (SD-PON) solution, leveraging Radisys’ SD-PON framework for broadband access disaggregation.

Based on open-community initiatives and the Open Networking Foundation’s (ONF) CORD® architecture, the SD-PON solution is the first-of-its-kind in the market, providing operators with the reliability, scalability and manageability that is essential for enabling carrier-grade, real-life service-delivery environments. In addition to this, the solution is verified to provide line-rate services to end users.

For the solution, Iskratel provided its SI3000 Lumia dual-nature GPON Optical Line Terminal (OLT) which takes the role of a physical OLT (pOLT) in the setup. Unlike other solutions that rely on 1U pizza-box OLTs, the unique solution uses a chassis-based, multi-blade hardware which can serve tens of thousands of users from a single chassis.

“At Broadband World Forum last year, we demonstrated the world’s first dual-nature OLT – and this has already been proven to provide the most interoperable components for PON Fibre-to-the-Home (FTTH) and virtualisation of the Central Office,” said Janez Öri, Director Strategy and Business Development at Iskratel. “Today, together with Radisys, we have reached another significant milestone. For the first time, operators will have the confidence to deploy a virtualised PON solution into their carrier-networks, providing the reliability, scalability and manageability which is so critical in real-life service delivery environments.”

Iskratel’s SI3000 Lumia GPON pOLT integrates with Radisys' cloud-based SD-PON which provides the control and management planes of the solution and has the ability to integrate with orchestration, management systems and auto-configuration systems based on Broadband Forum’s TR-069 protocol.

The control-plane set up is based on the architecture of the latest CORD release, which enables virtual OLT Hardware Abstraction (vOLTHA) to drive the pOLTs and Optical Network Terminals (ONTs) over an extended OpenOLT interface, which is hardened for carrier-grade use.

“As the demand for software solutions to support the evolution of legacy networks to new, cloud-based infrastructures increases, we are continuously looking to grow our technology partner ecosystem – and Iskratel’s offering is unique and complementary,” said Neeraj Patel, Vice President and General Manager, Software and Services at Radisys. “By leveraging the agility and interoperability of both of our solutions, along with our commitment of enabling cost-effective and efficient network upgrades, into more sustainable and scalable network infrastructures, we have developed a one-of-a-kind solution which operators can confidently deploy in real-life scenarios.”

Iskratel will showcase its full range of GPON solutions at ANGA COM 2019 – Stand S50, in Hall 8 – in Cologne, Germany, from Tuesday, June 4 until Thursday, June 6. Iskratel will also be in attendance at the Open Networking Community Meeting, in Berlin, Germany, from Wednesday, June 5 until Thursday, June 6.