In October 2021, Orange Spain conducted a live test of the ZTE F8648P XGS-PON Optical Network Terminal (ONT) on its network. The test results showed that the ONT achieved an uplink/downlink speed of 8.6 Gbps, close to the maximum theoretical rate for XGS-PON. The ZTE ONT features a 10 GE downlink port that supports eight spatial streams and Wi-Fi 6 technology, enabling physical layer speeds of up to 6 Gbps and a maximum of 128 end-user devices. Furthermore, the ONT is backward compatible with legacy end-user devices to accommodate home access scenarios, where multiple devices, both old and new, are typically present.

Spain was the first European country to deploy optical broadband and has carried out massive fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) rollouts. As the emergence of services such as the metaverse and 8K ultra-high-definition video drives increased demand for bandwidth, operators in other European countries have also begun building FTTH networks.