Accelerating Gigabit and Ultra-Gigabit Development, Boosting New Growth in Broadband

[Paris, France, October 15, 2025] At the F5G-A All-Optical Summit, part of the 11th Ultra-Broadband Forum (UBBF 2025) in Paris, Feng Zhishan, President of Huawei's Optical Access Domain, delivered a keynote speech entitled, "Accelerating Gigabit/Ultra-Gigabit Development, Boosting New Growth in Broadband."

Feng Zhishan, President of Huawei's Optical Access Domain, speaks at UBBF 2025

Feng pointed out that the rapid emergence of AI applications is driving the optical broadband industry to evolve towards "Intelligent-powered optical access." Huawei’s innovative F5G-A intelligent all-optical network solution uses technologies such as 10G PON to support global carriers in accelerating the development of gigabit and ultra-gigabit networks. Based on the concepts of Network for AI and AI for Network, F5G-A intelligent all-optical network innovatively implements device-edge-cloud synergy through built-in computing power, enriches AI application scenarios, and enables AI to benefit every home and industry.

Around the world, Gigabit broadband has gone mainstream. More than 550 carriers have released gigabit packages, with 10G PON shipment volume increasing 70% year-on-year. Compared with GPON, 10G PON can fully realize the potential of optical fiber, support 200M or higher optical broadband packages, provide true gigabit experience, improve user satisfaction, and help carriers gain advantages in market competition and earn more profits.

To support global carriers in accelerating the development of gigabit and ultra-gigabit networks, Huawei has launched five innovative solutions:

1. XGS-PON 2.0: The solution uses new 32-port FlexPON+ service boards and ultra-short preamble technology to increase the upstream bandwidth by 26%. The 32-port high-density design cuts by 50% the space required for equipment rooms and optical modules.
2. New Wi-Fi 7 ONTs: The ONTs use the brand-new Wi-Fi 7 tri-band 3+3+3 technology, 6 GHz frequency band, and Intelligent anti-interference technology. The actual rate exceeds 4 Gbps, which is 50% higher than that of traditional ONTs. The new ONTs support Wi-Fi sensing to implement home security protection and provide app-level intelligent acceleration, helping carriers release scenario-based services such as gaming and live streaming packages.
3. FTTR solution: As the only path to achieve ultra-gigabit coverage in homes, FTTR can increase the proportion of high-end packages, help carriers thrive in the networking market, activate second large-screen services, and improve user satisfaction. Currently, FTTR has been put into large-scale commercial use outside China. More than 40 carriers worldwide have released related packages, and the number of global FTTR users now exceeds 60 million.
4. FIE APP-Flow dynamic application private line: The solution identifies applications and allocates independent private lines to implement differentiated experience assurance, enabling carriers to provide bandwidth and value-added services on demand and to monetize user experience.
5. City computing network with 1 ms latency: The solution uses end-to-end OXC technology to support deterministic low latency. The all-optical transport capacity map is used to implement latency visualization management, providing a high-quality digital foundation for applications such as smart home and remote office.

Feng Zhishan stated that with the booming development of AI, 2025 will be the first year of AI agents globally. Carriers are actively building AI-to-Home and AI-to-Business service architectures to upgrade network connections. Huawei estimates that by 2035, 90% of Chinese households will have smart robots, and AI is forecasted to be applied by over 85% of companies. This will increase the requirements for network bandwidth, latency, and reliability.

To meet these requirements, Huawei has developed innovative solutions based on the concepts of Network for AI and AI for Network in optical access to support carriers' AI strategy in optical broadband.

• Network for AI: The NPU and CPU are integrated into one chip, providing computing power for ONTs. With Wi-Fi sensing and voice interaction, ONTs are upgraded from pure connection gateways to the entries of home intelligent services, enriching intelligent applications such as healthcare, entertainment, and fitness. This helps carriers provide comprehensive intelligent services. In addition, refined application awareness and hard slicing technologies are used to ensure a differentiated experience for high-value users.
• AI for Network: AI technologies are introduced into the home broadband network to implement an intelligent architecture at three layers: NE, management and control, and service; and to build an L4 home broadband autonomous network, which supports proactive awareness and closed-loop optimization of faults. In network assurance scenarios, the autonomous home broadband network can proactively detect, measure, and optimize user experience issues. In troubleshooting scenarios, automatic diagnosis is performed based on the fault map, enabling self-service troubleshooting in installation and maintenance. In addition, intelligent technologies can automatically formulate and dynamically adjust energy-saving policies based on traffic statistics and prediction, achieving high-precision energy saving that cannot be achieved manually and building a green all-optical access network.

Feng Zhishan emphasized that AI will bring once-in-a-decade business opportunities for the home broadband industry. Huawei is looking forward to working with global carriers and partners to accelerate the construction of gigabit and ultra-gigabit networks, develop new smart ONTs, enrich home applications, and provide differentiated AI service experience for users to stimulate the growth of the optical broadband industry.