Elisa has announced plans to deploy Nokia’s Lightspan MF solution as part of Europe’s first live 100G Passive Optical Network (PON) trial. This deployment marks a major milestone in Elisa’s efforts to deliver next-generation broadband speeds across its existing fibre network.
By integrating Nokia’s fibre technology, Elisa aims to be the first operator in Europe to demonstrate 25G, 50G and 100G PON services on a live network. The trial highlights how multiple PON generations can coexist on the same fibre, enabling operators to migrate capacity and performance incrementally without replacing entire passive infrastructure.
Sami Rajamäki, VP of Network Services at Elisa, said: “Nokia’s fibre solution will help us significantly enhance our fibre network to deliver some of the fastest internet speeds in the world. We’re excited to be the first in Europe to show up to 100G PON speeds in a live fibre network trial and demonstrate the world-class capabilities we can deliver to support the next generation of broadband services.”
He added that partnering with Nokia underlines Elisa’s commitment to providing high-quality, future-ready connectivity. While it’s difficult to predict every new use case that higher speeds will unlock, early beneficiaries will include latency-sensitive applications such as online gaming and industrial customers that need reliable, high-capacity links.
The live demonstration also underlines how operators can upgrade existing fibre networks to meet rising demand for faster, more resilient connectivity. Nokia’s portfolio supports a full range of next-generation PON options, spanning from 10G PON through to the emerging 100G PON technologies, which enables flexible migration paths for service providers.
Nokia’s Lightspan broadband access platform gives Elisa the tools to offer some of Europe’s fastest consumer and business broadband services—potentially delivering speeds up to ten times faster than many current fibre deployments. That capability is intended to serve both residential customers and enterprise segments that require greater bandwidth and stronger performance guarantees.
In parallel, Elisa has already adopted Nokia’s Altiplano platform to support 10G XGS-PON rollouts. Altiplano is designed to simplify automation, streamline management, and improve scalability and reliability across access networks, helping operators reduce operational complexity as they scale capacity.
Altiplano’s automation and management features will also help Elisa prepare for surging bandwidth demands driven by emerging services, including AI-based applications. Nokia Bell Labs projects that AI traffic in Western Europe could reach substantial volumes by the end of the decade, reinforcing the importance of scalable, high-capacity access infrastructure.
Matthieu Bourguignon, SVP and Head of Europe for Network Infrastructure at Nokia, commented: “We see demand for high-speed internet access surging in Europe with end users and enterprises alike increasingly seeking reliable, secure, high-quality broadband connectivity. Our Lightspan and Altiplano access platforms give operators like Elisa the tools they need to increase speed, provide superior performance, automate functions, and future-proof their fibre networks. Our fibre technology provides the perfect solution for operators that want to quickly increase capacity and flexibly migrate to next-generation fibre technologies.”
This trial reinforces an industry trend toward flexible, multi-generation fibre networks that allow service providers to introduce advanced tiers of service while protecting previous investments in passive infrastructure. By demonstrating 25G, 50G and 100G PON capabilities in a live environment, Elisa and Nokia are showing how these technologies can be introduced progressively to meet both consumer and enterprise needs.
For consumers, higher PON speeds translate into better performance for streaming, gaming, multi-user households and smart home applications. For enterprises and industrial users, increased capacity and lower latency enable richer cloud interactions, real-time control systems, and bandwidth-intensive workloads such as large-scale data transfers, edge computing, and AI model training and inference at the network edge.
The combination of Lightspan MF for high-capacity optical access and Altiplano for operational automation positions Elisa to scale service performance efficiently while maintaining management simplicity. These platforms together support dynamic service delivery, capacity scaling and a migration path toward 100G PON as demand and use cases evolve.
(Image by Forest White)
See also: Nokia and ZCorum streamline cable operators’ fibre transition
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