XGS-PON vs. Traditional Ethernet: AICPLIGHT’s Strategic Network Deployment for a Major Espoo Tech Park

A Finnish internet client, experiencing rapid business expansion, found its original office space insufficient for its growing workforce. To accommodate long-term development needs, the client acquired a new campus in Espoo comprising four office buildings for daily operations and business activities.

The client has maintained a stable two-year partnership with AICPLIGHT. Initially, they primarily procured optical modules for HPC in data center networks. AICPLIGHT's extensive technical expertise in HPC networking and consistently reliable product quality gradually earned the client's deep trust. Upon learning about AICPLIGHT's comprehensive campus network solutions, the client's network director proactively reached out, requesting AICPLIGHT to design and deliver the entire campus network solution.

As an internet company providing short video services across Finland, the client demands exceptionally high network bandwidth, stability, and low latency. Traditional GPON networks increasingly fail to meet current and future business requirements, necessitating more advanced access technologies.

The new campus includes four office buildings, each containing numerous office areas. Buildings B and C each have 33 floors, incorporating not only standard offices but also client reception areas, entertainment zones, lounges, and fitness facilities. These diverse spaces impose high demands on network continuity, bandwidth, and reliability.

The overall network architecture must be highly scalable to support future business growth and potential campus expansion.

The customer ultimately adopted the XGS-PON architecture. AICPLIGHT deployed OLTs in the main equipment room of each building as the core control and aggregation nodes of the entire network. The downstream PON ports of the OLTs connect to PLC splitters in the floor telecom rooms via the campus backbone fiber. The 1×8 PLC splitters evenly distribute optical signals into 256 channels. As passive devices, the PLCs operate stably without additional power supply. After splitting, the OLT's optical signals are distributed to individual ONU terminals, delivering comprehensive network services including Ethernet access, PoE power supply, and Wi-Fi to every room.

This project adopts an XGS-PON solution. XGS-PON is a symmetric PON technology delivering 10G speeds in both upstream and downstream directions. Additionally, XGS-PON inherently supports coexistence with earlier PON technologies.

Through this Finnish Internet Campus project, AICPLIGHT not only delivered a high-performance, future-proof XGS-PON campus network solution but also prioritized existing network compatibility and future scalability during the design phase.

Scalable for emerging bandwidth needs.

Reuse of legacy GPON ONUs cut upgrade expenses.

HPC/enterprise network experience ensured optimal deployment.