On June the 8^th, 2009, China Telecom and ZTE Corporation jointly hosted IEEE P802.3av 10G-EPON Task Force interim meeting in Shanghai, P. R. China. This was the very first time that the IEEE P802.3av 10G-EPON meeting was held in China. Engineers from around twenty companies including, among the others, ZTE Corporation, Teknovus, PMC-Sierra, Opulan, Luster Teraband Photonics, Enablence Technologies and China Telecom attended the meeting, which also saw participation from local Chinese academia. The approval of the P802.3av amendment to IEEE 802.3-2008 standard is expected in September 2009. Glen Kramer, the Chair of IEEE P802.3av Task Force, spoke very highly of the meeting organization and venue selection.

As part of the welcoming address, Wang Bo, representing technical department of China Telecom, gave a presentation entitled “Promoting Sustainable Development of Broadband and PON Network”. In this speech, Wang Bo introduced China Telecom -- the largest fixed-line operator in China, gave overview of services provided, and examined and compared various PON technologies existing on the market today. ”EPON is mature, has achieved component-level and system-level interoperability and is suitable for mass deployment, all while its cost is decreasing”, he said. He also indicated that China Telecom will actively promote 10G-EPON IOP testing, standardization and field trials to start in 2009.

ZTE Corporation, as one of the primary PON equipment vendors, constantly promotes and supports development of various PON standards. ZTE Corporation does not only make technical contributions to international standardization bodies, but also sponsors FSAN, ITU-T SG15 and CCSA meetings, pushing development of PON standards forward. Doctor Marek Hajduczenia of ZTE is the assistant editor for IEEE P802.3av 10G-EPON and co-editor for ITU-T G.987.2 PMD layer specifications. He submitted numerous editorial and technical contributions to various PON standardization meetings, while being also responsible of the draft development for 10G-EPON (primarily Clauses 75 and 77) and G.987.2 (PMD clause). At June 2009 interim meeting of P802.3av, he gave two presentations: one with high-level introduction to IEEE 802 standard development process and another one with the overview of 10G-EPON specifications.

The process of standardization of 10G-EPON systems was started with a successful Call for Interest back in March 2006. After almost 3 years of technical discussions and more than 20 Task Force meetings, IEEE P802.3av has reached technical maturity and draft D3.4 is expected to be forwarded to IEEE-SA Standards Board Standards Review Committee (RevCom) after July 2009 IEEE 802 plenary meeting in San Francisco, CA, USA.

Considering the growing delay in standardization of next generation G-PON networks and an increasing number of operators looking with interest at 10G-EPON as their next generation access platform, the future of EPON seems to be bright, despite long-announced G-PON proliferation, which has never materialized. With close to 30 million EPON ports deployed world-wide and at least 10 million more expected in China alone in 2009, EPON is an unquestionable leader in terms of optical access technology, with meager G-PON deployments trailing far behind, resembling the never-fulfilled promises of ATM.