Espoo, Finland – Nokia and China Mobile are deploying a GPON (Gigabit Passive Optical Network) mobile backhaul network in the Jiangsu and Henan provinces of China. The technology provides China Mobile with the backhaul infrastructure needed to support residential subscribers, enterprises, hotels, banks, schools and hospitals spread over some of China’s most populated areas, and will deliver the high-quality mobile data experiences its subscribers now expect in the 4G/5G era.

Focused on expanding indoor and outdoor coverage in urban areas, China Mobile is investing in new base stations and more than one hundred thousand LTE small cells, which will be networked over the GPON fiber backhaul technology. GPON provides a cost-efficient and scalable backhaul infrastructure over the last mile of access – a critical enabler for the mass deployment of small cells. Nokia’s GPON mobile backhaul solution allows China Mobile to further develop its LTE broadband user base, while at the same time expand its fiber to the home (FTTH) footprint needed to connect more residential and enterprise users.

China Mobile will be able to gain the network capacity, flexibility and scale needed to support the 54 percent increase in data traffic expected across Asia Pacific by 2020¹ . The streamlining of network operations will also lower the total cost of ownership and simultaneously enhance subscribers’ mobile service experiences.

Overview of the products and services delivered

• Nokia’s Wireline Mobile Backhaul solution includes the Nokia 7360 Intelligent Services Access Manager and the Nokia 7368 ISAM ONT, which deliver premium services over a GPON fiber backhaul environment.

Federico Guillèn, president of Nokia’s Fixed Networks business group, said : “It’s no secret that mobile traffic is exploding, growing exponentially as the world continues to go wireless. To support the data demands of wireless subscribers, operators are increasingly turning to fixed fiber networks such as GPON for their backhaul requirements to satisfy the scale, efficiencies and cost savings they seek. GPON also eliminates the need to create parallel and dedicated networks for backhaul, while simultaneously expanding the fiber footprint to support growing residential and business ultra-broadband demands.”

Did you know?

• Worldwide spending in small cell backhaul equipment shows double digit annual growth towards 2020 (Dell’Oro, January 2016)