ZTE, FiberHome and Huawei rank top in China Unicom's EPON tender evaluation
Beijing. July 28. INTERFAX-CHINA - China Unicom ranked ZTE Co. Ltd., FiberHome Technologies Group and Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. as the top three manufacturers in an evaluation for its Ethernet passive optical network (EPON) equipment tender, a China Unicom source told Interfax on July 27.
The results of the comprehensive evaluation ranked ZTE in first place in terms of technology, research and development, local support capacity and a number of other areas. FiberHome and Huawei placed second and third, according to the China Unicom source, who wished to remain anonymous. "At least 80 percent of the contract will be divided among these top three bidders," the source said, declining to reveal the total contract value of the tender.
China Unicom launched the world's largest EPON equipment tender on June 11, under which the company aims to purchase 11 million sets of EPON optical fiber cables for the purpose of elevating the national broadband bandwidth speed to at least 2 Megabits per second (Mbps). Some key areas, including larger cities and commercial centers are designated to receive bandwidth upgrades to between 4 and 100 Mbps.
The EPON equipment will be used in China Unicom's FTTx (Fiber-to-the-x) networks, mainly for FTTB (Fiber-to-the building) networks in public and commercial buildings, and some FTTH (Fiber-to-the-home) networks.
-CG