Belgacom is using central office and customer premises equipment based on Ikanos’ industry-leading chipsets as an integral part of its VDSL2 network infrastructure. Belgacom has deployed Ikanos-based IP digital subscriber line access multiplexers from Alcatel-Lucent and residential gateways from Sagem Communications as part of its fiber-to-the-node infrastructure that reaches homes across the country.

Belgacom has built a fiber infrastructure covering more than 16,000 street cabinet nodes throughout Belgium under an initiative called the Broadway Project. At the end of 2008, Belgacom was able to deliver high-definition triple play services to approximately 65 percent of Belgian households over its network, which combines fiber and VDSL2. This network delivers 20 Mbps video-grade bandwidth to the vast majority of customers.

VDSL2 is a key technology for cost-effectively delivering high-speed access to homes from the nodes, allowing Belgacom to offer revenue-enhancing triple play services, which include multiple simultaneous channels of HD IPTV, fast Internet and voice. Belgacom is planning to deliver triple play services over VDSL2 to 80 percent of Belgian households.

Ikanos’ Fx 10050-5 chipsets enable the development of highly integrated, high-performance 48-port European Telecommunications Standards Institute line cards. In addition, the chipsets support all VDSL2 profiles up to 17.6 MHz and offer up to 20.5 dBm of transmit power. The eight- port Fx10050-5 chipsets are backwards compatible with deployed ADSLx modems and can operate in VDSL2, VDSL, ADSL2+ or ADSL mode on a per-port basis.

Ikanos’ high-performance products -- including the Fusiv Vx160 processor and Fx10050S-5 chipsets -- have been integrated into Sagem Communications’ F@st 3464 residential gateway to provide wire-speed routing, VoIP, non-blocking WLAN and QoS functions for IPTV. The multi-mode VDSL2/ADSL2+ capability was designed in conjunction with Belgacom to enable residential gateways to be deployed independent of the underlying CO technology, supporting a seamless upgrade from ADSL2+ to VDSL2 without the added expense of a future truck roll. Ikanos’ Fusiv gateway processors provide superior support for advanced triple play services through their unique, distributed accelerator processor architectures. The on-chip APs offload broadband WLAN, bridging, routing, switching and firewall functions from the host CPU, so that the maximum possible processing power is preserved for advanced triple play functions.

Belgacom’s selection of Ikanos-based DSLAMs, modems and CPE gear confirms the compelling financial benefits of using VDSL2 over existing copper lines for next-generation, feature-rich, triple play services. VDSL2 technology in an FTTN deployment is an attractive approach because it minimizes the cost of new installation and trenching, and provides service providers with the ability to offer new services quickly.