[Dubai, UAE, October 25, 2021] Zhang Yan, Vice President of Huawei Optical Transport, delivered a keynote speech on Ubiquitous Optical Connectivity, Driving Business Growth during the Ultra-Broadband Forum (UBBF) 2021. Zhang Yan shared the concept of building an all-optical target network (OTN) and proposed that it should be deployed to wireless base stations and OLTs to build an end-to-end IP+Optical network, enabling optimal TCO and future new service development.
New Business and Cost Reductions Drive Carrier Network Transformation, Making All-Optical Target Network the Best Way to Enable Growth
According to the development strategies of the top telecom carriers, revenue growth and efficiency improvement have become the focus of each carrier. To increase revenue, many telecom carriers are developing new 2C, 2H, and 2B services, such as 4K/8K video, Cloud VR, and high-quality enterprise private lines. These new services perform best with large-bandwidth, low-latency networks, and differentiated SLAs. To improve efficiency, telecom operators are working to reduce operating costs, including reducing network TCO per bit, reducing carbon emissions, and adopting more automation technologies. All of these bring new requirements on networks and drive network transformation.
Historically, optical networks have been the transmission technology with the optimal TCO. They have irreplaceable advantages such as ultra-high bandwidth, ultra-low latency, ultra-long life cycle, and energy saving. According to industry analysts, this means that optical networks will become increasingly important in the future and will not be replaced for at least 20 years. Some leading operators in Western Europe have started to deploy OTN to wireless base stations and OLTs and use end-to-end IP+Optical networks to carry fixed broadband, mobile broadband, and enterprise private line services.
Zhang Yan recommends that operators plan their transport networks based on the all-optical target network. This network enables optimal TCO and supports future service development.
Firstly, the backbone networks need to evolve to 3D mesh networks. Single-wavelength 200G/400G and Super C+L technologies are used to maximize single-fiber capacity to optimize per-bit TCO. In addition, E2E OXC and ASON are deployed to provide differentiated service experience.
Secondly, metro networks need to evolve to all-optical networks. OTNs need to be deployed at the edge of the metro network to implement an IP+Optical one-hop network architecture. On-demand capacity expansion is then supported and the TCO can be reduced by 50%. In addition, E2E OXC needs to be deployed to simplify site configurations and reduce the single-site TCO.
Finally, the all-optical target network can provide differentiated experience to increase revenue per bit. It can also support future-oriented 8K/VR services, enabling the digitalization of thousands of industries.
All-optical 3D Backbone, Reducing Per-bit TCO with Larger Single-Fiber Capacity
The development of network infrastructure that serves as the backbone is always driven by industry technology. Providing greater single-fiber capacity is an effective way to reduce the TCO per bit, including increasing the single-wavelength rate, number of channels, and transmission distance. From 10G to now, 5000km of non-regenerator transmissions have become a standard requirement for mainstream backbone networks. Currently, the widely adopted technology is single wavelength 200G. With ultra-broadband C-band and Flexgrid ROADM, the transmission capacity of 80 wavelengths and single-fiber 16T can be supported. The next-generation mainstream technology will be single-wavelength 400G. With ultra-broadband C+L band, 80-wavelength transmission can be supported, and the single-fiber capacity can be increased to 32 Tbit/s.
Huawei adopts various technological innovations to maximize single-fiber capacity and reduce the TCO per bit.
- The first innovation is the ultra-high single-wavelength rate. In addition to the mainstream single-wavelength 200G technology, Huawei also leads the development of the future-oriented single-wavelength 800G industry. Currently, Huawei supports a single fiber 88T transmission capacity, which is 30% higher than that in the industry. The per-bit TCO is continuously reduced.
- The second innovation is the ultra-broadband spectrum. Currently, Huawei supports the 6 THz available spectrum of Super C band, which is 25% higher than that in the industry. In addition, it can be smoothly upgraded to Super C+L, and the available spectrum reaches 11 THz, which is 15% higher than that in the industry.
- Finally, in May 2021, Huawei cooperated with one of Europe’s leading carriers to successfully complete the field-network prototype test of single-wavelength 1.6T in Germany, indicating that the implementation of single-fiber 100T is no longer far away.
All-optical Metro: IP+Optical Frog Hop Architecture Achieves Optimal TCO for the Entire Network and Supports Future Service Development
With the rapid development of 5G, FTTH, and private line services, it is increasingly important to construct an FMEC integrated bearer network. OTNs are deployed to wireless base stations or OLTs, and end-to-end OXC is deployed to simplify site configurations and construct the IP+Optical one-hop Frog Hop architecture. This reduces the whole-network and single-site TCO and network-wide latency. It can support the development of new services in the future.
Huawei adopts various technological innovations to promote OTN deployment and reduce the TCO of each site.
- At network edge access sites, Huawei provides edge OTN devices with small size, large capacity, and low power consumption. These devices can be deployed together with OLTs/IPRANs in all scenarios to support operators' full FMEC service development.
- To address carriers' pain points such as complex network O&M and limited equipment room space, Huawei launched the blade OXC solution based on the existing OXC solution. This solution greatly saves equipment room space and device power consumption, and supports automatic optical-layer commissioning, reducing O&M costs.
- Huawei's innovative liquid OTN solution supports flexible hard pipes of 2 Mbit/s to 100 Gbit/s OSUs and is fully compatible with common OTN and MS-OTN networks. Supports SDH services, such as E1 and STM1/4/16, and smoothly incorporates old SDH devices, helping carriers save a lot of equipment room space, electricity, and fiber deployment costs.
OTN Premium Private line is Good for Business and will be Implemented across multiple Industries in the Future.
E2E OTN networks can also enable multiple OTN quality services to meet differentiated requirements.
- Currently, OTN P2P private lines provide the highest-quality service guarantee for enterprise customers, helping carriers improve monetization methods to increase revenue per bit. More than 90 OTN private networks have been built around the world, and each network has gained high profits. The ROI is generally less than one year.
- For small- and medium-sized enterprises, Huawei has launched an innovative OTN P2MP private line solution, which reuses the ODN infrastructure of fixed broadband and provides fast and low-cost private line services for commercial buildings, helping carriers gain more market space in the digital transformation of various industries. China's Guangdong province alone has 12,000 commercial buildings and is expected to generate $1.5 billion in private line revenue annually.
Finally, Zhang Yan said that the future-oriented all-optical target network will enable enterprise and home users to enjoy better network services and will enable a wide range of industries to improve their processes. Huawei is committed to providing optimal and leading all-optical solutions to help customers build an all-optical target network with the best TCO.
