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Aug 23, 2023

Huawei releases OptiX Alps

Posted by Total Telecom Staff | Mar 13, 2023 | TECHNOLOGY, COMPANY NEWS, Europe, Viewpoint During MWC 2023, Huawei released the OptiX Alps-WDM solution. This solution can help operators build

Posted by Total Telecom Staff | Mar 13, 2023 | TECHNOLOGY, COMPANY NEWS, Europe, Viewpoint

During MWC 2023, Huawei released the OptiX Alps-WDM solution. This solution can help operators build TCO-effective all-optical metro networks, enable OTN to EverySite, and implement high-quality development of all services to comfortably address the challenges of diversified network connections in the 5G/5.5G era.

As services and applications such as 5G, 4K/8K, VR/AR, and enterprise digitalization develop, a growing number of operators ramp up fixed mobile convergence (FMC) to allow users to enjoy the same services and applications over both fixed and mobile networks. Operators can provide FMC packages to expand sales opportunities and reduce marketing costs, as well as further increase user loyalty and average revenue per user (ARPU) for long-term development of all services. Global mainstream operators are vigorously developing FMC, and it is estimated that by 2025, about 70% of global operators will provide FMC packages.

The continuous 5G-oriented evolution of mobile services and home broadband upgrade from GPON to 10G PON have resulted in surging service traffic and increasing demand on bandwidth and latency of bearer networks. Limited by their hop-by-hop forwarding mode, traditional metro networks fail to cope with the explosion in traffic due to factors such as insufficient end-site equipment room space, power, and fiber resources, as well as low manual provisioning efficiency of massive services.

First, to align with traffic growth and technology evolution, traditional bearer networks need to have more and more devices deployed, leading to insufficient equipment room space to develop new services. For example, 67% end sites of an operator in Thailand have insufficient space to support the development of new services such as 5G and Internet data center (IDC).

Second, optical fibers have become strategic resources that need to be extended to end users for fast access and long-term development of multiple services. Statistics show that about 70% operators, especially mobile operators, are facing fiber shortages.

Finally, traditional bearer networks suffer from low service provisioning efficiency. Traditional manual planning, configuration, and O&M cannot cope with the increasing network traffic and scale. As such, there is urgent demand for simplified network O&M to provision massive services efficiently. For example, a European operator using traditional networks needs as long as 20 days to provision a single service.

To address the challenges of metro networks, Huawei released the OptiX Alps-WDM solution to extend all-optical switching optical cross-connect (OXC) from the core layer to the access layer. By building a dynamic bandwidth resource pool, this solution achieves 100G to sites, helping operators reduce network construction costs by more than 30% and operation costs by 90%. It also provides capacity required for all-service development and evolution in the next decade. This solution has four technical innovations:

It attaches a light sensor to each wavelength to carry path, frequency, bandwidth, and power information, and works with the NCE management and control system to implement automatic network planning and O&M.

It uses the customized 100G M-QPSK modulation format and compact integrated coherent transmitter/receiver (ICTR) for metro N x 10G scenarios, enabling 100G to CO, 10-fold capacity growth, and evolution to 400G.

It uses a fully pooled architecture to enable wavelength sharing among multiple rings, centralized control, and on-demand allocation. By replacing nine subracks with one, it requires 80% less space and power consumption and reduces network construction costs.

It uses industry’s first M x N WSS and Nano WSS components to extend all-optical switching OXC from the core layer to the aggregation and edge layers. This achieves all-optical one-hop connection, reduces latency by 60%, supports networkwide flexible grooming, and shortens service provisioning time to minutes.

Using the innovative Huawei OptiX Alps-WDM solution, operators can build green all-optical networks with simplified architectures and ultimate experiences, thereby accelerating development of all services and supporting service evolution over the coming decade.

Huawei OptiX Alps-WDM solution can help operators quickly reduce construction costs and improve operation efficiency of metro networks. It has been deployed at pilot sites of more than 10 operators, and put into commercial use by operator C in Latin America and China Unicom.

Under its digitalization strategy, operator C in Latin America has developed multiple services, including mobile, home, and enterprise services, leading to a 30% increase in traffic at metro CO sites each year. This operator faced challenges such as insufficient end-site equipment room space, power consumption, and fiber resources, as well as low manual O&M efficiency. In response, they commercially deployed Huawei OptiX Alps-WDM solution. The implementation is as follows: at the aggregation site, three access rings share bandwidth resources, reducing the number of subracks from five to two and reducing power consumption by 40% compared with a traditional solution; at the access site, one subrack enables 100G full-service access and unified optical-electrical bearing, reducing the space by 50%. Huawei OptiX Alps-WDM solution also reduces per-bit transmission TCO by 30% and shortens service time to market (TTM) from days to minutes, effectively driving the growth of fixed network users, mobile users, and revenues.

Meanwhile, China Unicom Chongqing has completed trial commercial use of Huawei OptiX Alps-WDM solution, building an E2E ROADM+OTN metro network from the core layer to the aggregation layer, and then to the integrated access layer, laying a solid foundation for the high-quality construction of new digital ICT infrastructure.

Huawei has been committed to strategic investment and technological innovation in the optical communications field for many years, empowering operators to build ubiquitous premium connectivity. In the future, Huawei will join hands with global operators to accelerate optical network upgrade and the application of new technologies, helping operators continuously expand their business boundaries and seize opportunities with ultimate user experience to lead the future.

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