Google Fiber tapped Nokia to boost the speed of its regional fiber broadband service. It will provide peak symmetrical speeds up to 20 Gb/s, though early access will be limited to FOG (friends of Google).

The deal has Nokia providing its 25G passive optical networking (PON) product to Google Fiber through the everything-giant’s recently unveiled GFiber Labs. The 25G PON technology can support network speeds up to 25 Gb/s, or 10 times faster than traditional GPON, though Google Fiber is marketing its service at delivering 20 Gb/s.

Nick Saporito, head of product at Google Fiber, explained in an interview with SDxCentral that the Nokia equipment will be installed at the end of Google Fiber’s already installed fiber runs.

“It's really just new optics and one other new network client in our central office, and then a new optical network terminal at the customer premises,” Saporito said. “It's a very incremental upgrade.”

Saporito added that the new Nokia gear is being installed on top of legacy XGS-PON equipment from that vendor that powers Google Fiber’s 5 Gb/s and 8 Gb/s services, which the ISP claims is serving thousands of customers. XGS-PON technology is a fixed wavelength symmetrical 10 Gb/s platform.

“It was kind of a no-brainer decision to go in that direction as an ISP that wants to always push the envelope on bandwidth,” Saporito said of the 25G update. The new equipment will also continue to support legacy technologies.

Julie Kunstler, chief analyst for broadband access intelligence service at Omdia, noted in a comment tied to the news that the agreement “highlights the momentum we are starting to see for 25G PON. With a robust ecosystem, 25G PON can be a natural fit for those operators that want to pursue higher-revenue customers and applications. Because you can use the same underlying infrastructure as FTTH, this means more revenues without expensive new network builds or additional operational costs.”

That outlook was backed by Dell’Oro Group, which recently forecast 25G PON equipment revenue would grow from $315 million in 2022, to $588 million in 2025. The research firm did add that the 25G PON market would pale in comparison to the $7.7 billion generated by the more established XGS-PON market, with 25G PON “used strategically by operators for high-end residential services, enterprises, campus environments, access network aggregation, and wholesale connections.”

Bassam El-Zakhem, SVP of network infrastructure for the Americas at Nokia, explained in an email that some of the 25G PON equipment and line cards being used by Google Fiber will eventually be manufactured in the U.S. as part of Nokia’s recently announced deals tied to the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) program. El-Zakhem added that the equipment GFiber is deploying “will also be available to BEAD operators.”

Consumer networking focus first

Saporito said the new service will initially roll out in a handful of Google’s fiber markets toward the end of this year. Access will be limited to “customers by invitation only.”

Those invitations will be primarily targeted at residential customers with high-bandwidth needs. “We're really focused on the bleeding-edge early adopter customers,” he said.

However, early users are enterprise oriented, with the 20 Gb/s service already being used by organizations in Kansas City, Missouri, and Provo, Utah.

The GFiber offering will also include a Wi-Fi 7 component that will extend the 20-gig fiber service to mobile devices. Wi-Fi 7, which is a standard still going through the approval process, builds on the still-new Wi-Fi 6E standard by doubling the channel bandwidth from 160 megahertz to 320 megahertz. Bigger channel = more potential speed.

Saporito also noted the company could see opportunities to use its updated fiber assets to support the growing need by wireless service providers to maintain backhaul support for their 5G networks.

“We definitely see future use cases for 25G PON to serve as backhaul, either to fixed-wireless projects or even cellular networks,” he said.