Alcatel-Lucent has announced that they will add to their fiber to the home (FTTH) products with a new optical network terminal (ONT) that supports gigabit Wi-Fi, as well as an online service-activation feature called ‘ONT Easy Start’.

Alcatel-Lucent’s new 7368 Intelligent Service Access Manager (ISAM) is a home network hub, that delivers consistent distribution of broadband speed throughout the house. By using dual-band Wi-Fi and greater signal strength, it provides 1 Gbps of bandwidth and better in-home coverage, meaning that there is no impact on speeds or the customer experience as more devices are connected.

Alcatel-Lucent is also launching a new capability for its FTTH portfolio that will allow operators to connect customers more quickly and easily. ‘ONT Easy Start’ is an online activation feature that combines Alcatel-Lucent’s Motive family of customer experience management solutions with its services expertise to allow consumers to activate their new FTTH services via a web portal. ONT Easy Start  helps operators reduce the time and cost of sending field technicians to homes while also reducing the homeowners inconvenience of having to wait for a visit. Replacing the manual, time-consuming registration process will also reduce the risk of human error.

The company is now trialing the new optical network terminal with customers, and will make it and the ONT Easy Start feature commercially available during the third quarter of 2015.

Last year, Calix announced a somewhat similar Gigabit Wi-Fi ONT gateway, called GigaCenters. See http://www.calix.com/news/press_releases/press_release_20140903.html for more details.  For comments on Calix G-PON see http://www.truepulse.com/beyond-gpon/

To see details on the announcement from Lucent, refer to http://www.alcatel-lucent.com/press/2015/alcatel-lucent-help-communications-providers-deliver-gigabit-speed-ultra-broadband-access-throughout