Ericsson announces an upgrade to its high-performance Gigabit Passive Optical Network system, the EDA 1500, an important part of the company's broadband offering. The upgraded version of EDA 1500 can now switch bandwidth up to 320Gbps for commercial and residential next-generation multimedia services.

Fiber optic technology and fiber-to-the-home deployments are becoming an increasingly important part of access networks capable of delivering cutting-edge services such as IPTV and other IP-based multimedia services. GPON is the leading fiber access standard and became an important part of Ericsson's broadband offering with the acquisition of industry leader Entrisphere in February 2007.

Service providers can make their networks future-proof with the enhanced EDA 1500. The increased capacity enables the move from multi-casted (one-to-many) to uni-casted (one-to-one) broadband connections. This enables individual end users to experience their own high-speed services such as video-on-demand and time-shifting TV streams. Once the system and switch interfaces are installed, future capacity upgrades simply require new software and service cards.

Ericsson's GPON solution is already in service in North America and has been deployed by leading telecom carriers around the globe. In related news, Ericsson will provide equipment for AT&T's planned deployment of Gigabit Passive Optical Network in "new build" areas as part of its overall U-verse network strategy.

Björn Olsson, Executive Vice President and deputy head of Business Unit Networks at Ericsson says: "Ericsson's innovative GPON solutions help service providers increase efficiency and generate additional revenue because they deliver individualized content to end users across the same network that delivers business services such as high-speed internet or VoIP."

With this upgrade, the EDA 1500 now includes the fastest GPON switch on the market with 320 Gbps of switch capacity. It also provides for the most uplink bandwidth toward the network with its G28 card that includes two 10 Gigabit Ethernet interfaces and eight 1 Gigabit Ethernet interfaces on one card. New software also provides 1:64 split ratio on the fiber and Dynamic Bandwidth Allocation along with a suite of IP features including Quality of Service, security and other upgrades designed to enable carriers to deliver new services cost-effectively.

EDA 1500 will be demonstrated at NXTcomm in Chicago, June 19-21, 2007. The demonstration will showcase IPTV and triple-play services running on the service platform.