Bouygues Telecom completes nationwide XGS-PON fiber deployment in France, speeds up to 8 Gbit/s

en.Wedoany.com Reported - Bouygues Telecom has completed the full transition of its fiber network to the XGS-PON standard. The operator confirmed that both residential and business users can now access symmetrical speeds of up to 8 Gbit/s at any location covered by its FttH network.

XGS-PON is an advanced version of the current GPON standard, achieved by transmitting higher-speed optical signals over the same fiber without laying new cables. This technology is based on the international standard G.9807.1, offering theoretical download and upload speeds of 8 Gbit/s, compared to GPON's 2.5 Gbit/s download and 1.25 Gbit/s upload. The upgrade only requires replacing equipment at the operator's end and the user's optical modem, without removing existing lines, resulting in lower latency and more stable connections during peak hours.

In terms of competition, SFR launched XGS-PON in 2022 and now claims nearly half of its FTTH lines support the standard. Bouygues Telecom began deployment in Paris in 2023, gradually expanding nationwide. Orange plans to achieve 100% XGS-PON coverage by the end of 2026. Free has opted for the 10G-EPON standard, which offers the same speeds but is slightly different and somewhat outdated. Bouygues Telecom currently leads with full coverage.

XGS-PON is a fiber technology four times faster than GPON, and Bouygues Telecom has fully mastered it.

To support the new standard, Bouygues has introduced the Bbox optical modem with WiFi 7, standard in its high-end Bbox ultym package, enabling full use of the 8 Gbit/s symmetrical speeds for transferring large files in seconds, lag-free online gaming, or smooth 8K content streaming. For business users, the Bbox Pro Évolutive and Bbox Pro Tout-en-Un packages, launched in September 2025, natively support XGS-PON, offering symmetrical speeds from 2 to 8 Gbit/s, tailored for cloud switching and intensive video conferencing scenarios.

Jean-Paul Arzel, Director of Technology and Networks at Bouygues Telecom, stated that this achievement is the result of the collaboration and commitment of all teams involved in the project. This effort required updating equipment at every optical distribution node nationwide, reflecting Bouygues' philosophy of "practical innovation"—cutting-edge technology designed to serve real-world applications, not just for show.

Orange has also set a target of full coverage by the end of 2026, and it remains to be seen whether it can meet this deadline. Meanwhile, the industry is already discussing the next-generation 50G-PON standard (which Orange has tested in real-world environments, achieving speeds of up to 40 Gbit/s) and the 100G PON technology jointly tested by Nokia and SFR last year.