UAE based telecom service provider du says they are in the process of migrating their fixed telephone line home networks to GPON based system. du has already migrated 50 percent of its subscribers to the new technology. The operator will finish the migration process by the end of this year.
du plans to offer 1 Gbps broadband services to its subscribers within two months. Gigabit services would provide an enhanced user experience. du has been focussing traditionally on enterprise solutions and Fiber to the building and business services and this business model has proved successful for the operator.
du is the second biggest telecom service provider in UAE, the number one being Etisalat with its vast network of fiber optic cables across the emirates. du has pushed and moved its efforts with the telecom regulators in the country for sharing of telecom networks that are largely owned by Etisalat. Sharing of backbone and access networks would do balancing in the highly monopolized telecom markets.
du officials say they have not done many major launches in the fixed home network area but, they had done a clean-up and revamp of the area. The biggest change du is doing right now is migrating subscribers to GPON (Gigabit-capable Passive Optical Networks) technology. GPON is the technology that offers higher speeds for customers and gives operators access to administrative tools.
In the emirates, Etisalat’s access technology is based on Gigabit passive optical networks. In massive deployment throughout the emirates, that has started its an accelerated pace in 2007 and continued until 2012, Etisalat could pretty much cover the majority of households with optical fiber connectivity. Etisalat’s efforts coupled with du’s focus on business customers helped to place UAE at the top of the list of countries having a maximum percentage of households having FTTH and or FTTB connected as per FTTH Council ranking.
With du jumping into GPON technology offering speeds of 1 Gbps and above, many more premium members would be attracted to the service provider’s offer. GPON set-top boxes will give du the ability to monitor its networks that will enable the provider for troubleshooting. Real-time monitoring allows du to offer faster restoration of services in case of network problems.
Current broadband speeds over the optical fiber network being offered are maximum of 100 Mbps for download and 10 Mbps for upload. By introducing GPON technology it is estimated that the speeds can be increased to 2 Gbps for download and 100 Mbps for upload. The operator now offers download speeds of 8, 16, 24, and 100 Mbps.
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