China Mobile Communications Corporation ("China Mobile") has recently unveiled its first FTTx equipment procurement result, according to exclusive C114 news.

China Mobile's procurement of FTTx equipment this time, which is a milestone for China Mobile to start its fixed broadband initiatives, has garnered widespread attention from the industry ever since bid invitation. As such, a large number of GPON vendors worldwide, including well-known companies Huawei, FiberHome, Alcatel-Lucent Shanghai Bell, Ericsson, ZTE, and Motorola, have zealously joined the bid for winning the lion's share, the first time when they officially gather together to prove their GPON strengths in China. As indicated in the procurement result, GPON is selected by China Mobile as a major technology and Chinese vendors obtain overwhelming shares. Especially, five companies, that is, Huawei, FiberHome, Alcatel-Lucent Shanghai Bell, Ericsson, and ZTE, are bidder winners. Among them, the biggest winner is Huawei, followed by FiberHome.

Chinese Vendors' Overwhelming Shares: Huawei No.1 and FiberHome No.2

According to insiders, China Mobile embarked on the multi-vendor verification tests (phase one) in late 2008, meticulously testing the PON equipment, NMS OMC, and northbound interface (NBI) standards-compliance. After about a year's verification, China Mobile officially released the invitation to bid for procurement of PON equipment in December 2009.

After rigorous technical and commercial evaluation as well as assessment of its provincial branches, China Mobile nailed down the list of bid winners in April 2010. Among these bid winners, Huawei is the most successful, winning about 50% share by leveraging its superb product solutions and services. What follows Huawei is FiberHome, a "dark horse" in this bid who obtains 20% share, overtaking Alcatel-Lucent Shanghai Bell, Ericsson, and ZTE.

As reported by C114, Huawei has ranked No.1 in technical evaluation. Especially, Huawei has outperformed rivals in the IMS+PON full-service bearer solution, a focus of China Mobile, and the IMS+PON commercial trail backed by Zhejiang Mobile (China Mobile's branch in Zhejiang Province) and Huawei has won high praise from China Mobile. In addition, Huawei's FTTx solutions and technical strengths have been proven superb in testing.

GPON as a Major Technology, First Step Towards China Mobile's Fixed Broadband Business

As a full-service operating practicer, China Mobile has been unremittingly paying attention to the progression of FTTx access technologies and relevant industry. After carrying out the PON equipment tests and provincial commercial trials and summarizing the PON construction guidance and suggestions, China Mobile has finalized its blueprint of "putting GPON and EPON in the same line while preferring GPON".
This time, China Mobile has included both GPON and EPON equipment in its tender for procurement of FTTx equipment. The procurement result reveals that GPON accounts for over 90% of the tender, signifying that China Mobile chooses GPON as the major technology for its fixed broadband business.

GPON standards were first put forward by the Full Service Access Network (FSAN) in 2002 and issued by the ITU-T. These GPON standards are mainly promoted by carriers, industry vendors, and experts, and take much consideration for definition, bandwidth, service bearing, management and maintenance. As such, GPON is homologated as a better choice for full-service operations and triple-play applications.

According to experts from the China Mobile Communication Research Institute, GPON features higher bandwidth, longer transmission distance, and greater split ratio than EPON.