Huawei releases optical refarming solution

Targeted investment, maximizing network value

Geneva, Switzerland, September 11, 2018: At the fifth Ultra-Broadband Forum (UBBF 2018), Huawei released its optical refarming solution, which aims to help operators invest more accurately and improve network capabilities based on existing network resources. The solution uses scenario-specific solutions, such as 3D-mesh backbone network, wavelength incorporation, coherent reconstruction, and ASON evolution, to enable continuous evolution and maximize network value.

In the era of connectivity of everything, emerging services such as 5G, HD video, interactive gaming, and Internet of Things (IoT) have begun to pose significant challenges to transport networks. To effectively address these challenges, operators are seeking ultra-high bandwidth, simplified, and intelligent optical networks. However, global operators still have a large number of low-rate and non-coherent 10G/40G networks, which cannot satisfy the requirements for heavy-traffic transport and must be urgently upgraded to support current and future services. Additionally, existing fiber networks are operators' valuable resources that need to be maximized to protect existing investment. How to balance existing optical network resources and the target network architecture to maximize the value of optical networks has become a focus of global operators.

To help operators invest more accurately and maximize the value of optical networks, Huawei released its optical refarming solution to build future-oriented new-generation optical networks over the existing network architecture by using innovative solutions, such as 3D-mesh backbone network, wavelength incorporation, coherent reconstruction, and ASON evolution.

3D-mesh backbone network solution: To respond to congested links, a 3D-mesh backbone network uses redundant optical fibers to establish a 3D link network. In this way, traffic can be diverted, network reliability can be enhanced, and differentiated services can be distributed, eliminating uneven network link resource utilization and facilitating the setup of a future-oriented full-mesh network architecture.

Wavelength incorporation and coherent reconstruction solution: To resolve the shortage of fiber resources and maximize existing 10G/40G fiber resources, this solution implements 100G/200G wavelength incorporation and uses optical-layer DCM Free/Bypass technologies to increase single-fiber capacity 10-fold, improve network performance by 40%, and facilitate smooth evolution to 400G.

ASON evolution solution: It introduces ASON technologies to existing networks to help achieve automatic O&M, thereby improving O&M efficiency, reducing O&M costs, and increasing network reliability from 99.9% to 99.999%.

"This solution represents our commitment to helping our customers succeed," said Richard Jin, President of Huawei Transmission Network Product Line. "Our customers can now get more out of their existing network resources in various scenarios and achieve even more business success."

To date, Huawei's optical refarming solution has helped over 40 operators reconstruct and upgrade more than 170 optical networks. Looking ahead, Huawei will continue to strengthen optical network innovation, construct future-oriented new-generation optical networks based on operators' differentiated scenario requirements, and enable operators to build ultra-broadband, simplified, and intelligent intent-driven optical networks and embrace a fully connected, intelligent world.