Altice Labs announces a major innovation in fiber optic networks

Altice Labs, S.A. announces a major innovation for fiber optic networks, revolutionizing the way these networks are deployed on the ground by doubling their capacity, allowing to serve twice as many customers as with current technology, simply by changing the electro-optical connector where the fiber is connected to the central equipment. This modification is compatible with current routers and has no impact on the equipment people have at home.

This electro-optical connector, the size of a finger, called in technical terms SFP - Small Factor Pluggable - is the point from where the optical fiber comes out, which is then divided 32, 64 or 128 times reaching people's homes. It is a converter of electrical signals into optical signals, as optical fiber uses light to transmit information and is the fastest means of transmission we know, because nothing is faster than the speed of light.

What Altice Labs has developed is a dual SFP, which allows two optical fibers to be connected on the same port of the central equipment and thus double the number of customers connected by fiber, just by changing this interface.

This worldwide innovation can be applied to current fiber optic technology, in which the download bandwidth of 2,5 Gigabit per second and the upload bandwidth of 1,25 Gigabit per second, in each fiber optic, is shared by the connected users (in analogy with mobile networks where the bandwidth made available by each antenna is shared by the users connected to it). But it can also be applied to the latest technology with fiber optics with a symmetrical 10 Gigabit per second bandwidth, with 10 Gigabit per second download and another 10 upload.

Fiber optic technology has reached a sufficiently advanced degree of maturity that it now allows us to focus on increasing central office density, and this innovation from Altice Labs represents an important milestone in the development of the technology and a welcome confidence boost for the massification of higher user density at a much lower cost.

Compared to traditional technology, these converters developed by Altice Labs not only increase the bandwidth per physical interface of the equipment in the telecom central, but also increase the density of ports per equipment, allowing to reach distances greater than 40 Km.

With this innovation, Altice Labs remains at the forefront of fiber optic technology with products installed in over 60 countries on all continents, and is considered a reference supplier in the market.