In the week of November 12^th to 15^th 2024, both the 20^th ETSI ISG F5G Plenary meeting and CCSA TC6 WG2 plenary meeting were held, co-located in Jingdezhen, Jiangxi Province, China.

On November 13^th 2024 during the two meetings, a workshop on "Evolution of Optical Network Generations: Technologies and Standards" was held. Six experts from both ISG F5G and CCSA TC6 WG2 shared the latest progress of technologies and standards development of optical networks. A panel discussion was held over the topics of future technologies and standard cooperation to promote the next generation of optical networks. The panellists include:

• Dr. Dechao Zhang, CCSA TC6 WG2 Vice Chair, China Mobile
• Dr. Olivier Ferveur, ETSI ISG F5G Chair, POST Luxembourg
• Dr. Jialiang Jin, ETSI ISG F5G Vice Chair, China Telecom
• Mr. Hai Ding, Network innovative product expert from China Unicom
• Ms. Qian Liu, ETSI ISG F5G TEST WG Chair, CAICT
• Dr. Raul Muñoz, Research Director, CTTC
• Dr. Marcus Brunner (Moderator), ETSI ISG F5G Vice Chair, Huawei

Four speeches were given in the workshop:

• Dr. Dechao Zhang recapped the Access and Home network standard generations developed by CCSA TC6 WG2 in the past decades, and introduced the recent progresses on 50G-PON and FTTR standards. He also shared the future standard development vision of WG2 on beyond 50G-PON, integrated communication, sensing and computing, and autonomous access network. In addition, more collaboration between CCSA TC6 and ETSI ISG F5G was discussed.
• Dr. Olivier Ferveur gave a whole picture of ETSI ISG F5G, including history of ISG development, achievements and the current organization structure. The key standards in F5G-A Release 3 were published in October 2024. The standard roadmap and evolution towards F5G-A Release 4 started. It was encouraged to have more cooperation across SDOs on standard development and outreach activities.
• Dr. Jialiang Jin introduced PON standard roadmap and proposed a closer cooperation between ITU-T, CCSA, and ETSI for the standard development. He also shared his views on the application of PON technologies in verticals in China. The thoughts on the standardization of industrial PON as a supplement of the ITU-T PON standards were mentioned.
• Mr. Hai Ding discussed the recent progresses on FTTR standards in ITU-T SG15 Q3, CCSA TC6 WG2 and BBF. He showed the effort of China Unicom on the FTTR commercial deployment, as well as their contributions and future plans on FTTR standards including FTTR protocols (FMCI and WMCI), remote management, and Quality of Experience.

After that, there was a panel discussion on the key scenarios, requirements for technologies and standards, and the collaboration between SDOs on the next-generation Optical Access Network, moderated by Dr. Marcus Brunner.

During the discussion, the conclusion was reached that further cooperation between ITU-T SG15, ETSI ISG F5G and CCSA TC6 for the next-generation optical network standards is needed. Standard and industry activities, such as holding joint workshops, and creating joint projects to define optical generation standards, were proposed to promote the unified optical generations.