China Unicom has selected Alcatel-Lucent as the key supplier for its proposed fibre broadband access network, one of the largest GPON broadband projects in China to date.

Alcatel-Lucent beat local Chinese vendors Huawei, ZTE and Fibrehome to secure the deal.

The deployment includes the extension of China Unicom’s broadband access network in 29 provinces for the delivery of applications such as interactive TV, video-on-demand services, gaming and social networking with speeds of up to 100 Mbps.

China Unicom’s overall tender includes 15 million GPON ports and Alcatel Lucent has secured 6 million, the largest share of any vendor.

China is fast tracking its expansion of fiber-optic networks nationally and once completed China Unicom’s project will be the largest deployment of GPON technology globally.

Meanwhile China Unicom Hong Kong and China Telecom Corp said that they will cooperate with an anti-monopoly probe of their broadband internet services by the nation’s top economic planning agency.

China has started an anti-monopoly investigation of the two companies that may result in fines of “billions of yuan,” China Central Television reported yesterday.