ECOC 2019 industry reflections

Gazettabyte is asking industry figures for their thoughts after attending the recent ECOC show, held in Dublin. In particular, what developments and trends they noted, what they learned and what, if anything, surprised them. Here are the first responses from Huawei, OFS Fitel and ADVA.  

James Wangyin, senior product expert, access and transmission product line at Huawei  

At ECOC, one technology that is becoming a hot topic is machine learning. There is much work going on to model devices and perform optimisation at the system level.

And while there was much discussion about 400-gigabit and 800-gigabit coherent optical transmissions, 200-gigabit will continue to be the mainstream speed for the coming three-to-five years.  

That is because, despite the high-speed ports, most networks are not being run at the highest speed. More time is also needed for 400-gigabit interfaces to mature before massive deployment starts.

BT and China Telecom both showed excellent results running 200-gigabit transmissions in their networks for distances over 1,000km. 

We are seeing this with our shipments; we are experiencing a threefold year-on-year growth in 200-gigabit ports.

Another topic confirmed at ECOC is that fibre is a must for 5G. People previously expressed concern that 5G would shrink the investment of fibre but many carriers and vendors now agree that 5G will boost the need for fibre networks.

As for surprises at the show, the main discussion seems to have shifted from high-speed optics to system-level or device-level optimisation using machine learning.

Many people are also exploring new applications based on the fibre network. 

For example, at a workshop to discuss new applications beyond 5G, a speaker from Orange talked about extending fibre connections to each room, and even to desktops and other devices. Other operators and systems vendors expressed similar ideas. 

Verizon discussed, in another market focus talk, its monitoring of traffic and the speed of cars using fibre deployed alongside roads. This is quite impressive. 

We are also seeing the trend of using fibre and 5G to create a fully-connected world. 

Such applications will likely bring new opportunities to the optical industry.

Two other items to note.

The Next Generation Optical Transport Network Forum (NGOF) presented updates on optical technologies in China. Such technologies include next-generation OTN standardisation, the transition to 200 gigabits, mobile transport and the deployment of ROADMs. The NGOF also seeks more interaction with the global community.

The 800G Pluggable MSA was also present at ECOC. The MSA is also keen for more companies to join.

Daryl Inniss, director, new business development at OFS Fitel

There were many discussions about co-packaged optics, regarding the growth trends in computing and the technology’s use in the communications market. 

This is a story about high-bandwidth interfaces and not just about linking equipment but also the technology’s use for on-board optical interconnects and chip-to-chip communications such as linking graphics processing units (GPUs).

I learned that HPE has developed a memory-centric computing system that improves significantly processing speed and workload capacity. This may not be news but it was new to me. Moreover, HPE is using silicon photonics in its system including a quantum dot comb laser, a technology that will come for others.

As for surprises, there was a notable growing interest in spatial-division multiplexing (SDM). The timescale may be long term but the conversations and debate were lively.  Two areas to watch are in proprietary applications such as very short interconnects in a supercomputer and for undersea networks where the hyperscalers  quickly consume the capacity on any newly commission link.

Lastly, another topic of note was the use of spectrum outside the C-band and extending the C-band itself to increase the data-carrying capacity of the fibre.

Jörg-Peter Elbers, senior vice president, advanced technology, ADVA

Co-packaging optics with electronics is gaining momentum as the industry moves to higher and higher silicon throughput. The advent of 51.2 terabit-per-second (Tbps) top-of-rack switches looks like a good interception point. Microsoft and Facebook also have a co-packaged optics collaboration initiative.

As for coherent, quo vadis? Well, one direction is higher speeds and feeds. What will the next symbol rate be for coherent after 60-70 gigabaud (GBd)? A half-step or a full-step; incremental or leap-frogging? The growing consensus is a full-step: 120-140 GBd.

Another direction for coherent is new applications such as access/ aggregation networks. Yet cost, power and footprint challenges will have to be solved.

Advanced optical packaging, an example being the OIF IC-TROSA project, as well as compact silicon photonics and next-gen coherent DSPs are all critical elements here.

A further issue arising from ECOC is whether optical networks need to deliver more than just bandwidth.

Latency is becoming increasingly important to address time-sensitive applications as well as for advanced radio technologies such as 5G and beyond.

Additional applications are the delivery of precise timing information (frequency, time of day, phase synchronisation) where the existing fibre infrastructure can be used to deliver additional services. 

An interesting new field is the use of the communication infrastructure for sensing, with Glenn Wellbrock giving a presentation on Verizon’s work at the Market Focus.

Other topics of note include innovation in fibres and optics for 5G.

With spatial-division multiplexing, interest in multi-core and multi-mode fibre applications have weakened. Instead, more parallel fibres operating in the linear regime appear as an energy-efficient, space-division multiplexing alternative. 

Hollow-core fibres are also making progress, offering not only lower latencies but lower nonlinearity compared to standard fibres.

As for optics for 5G, what is clear is that 5G requires more bandwidth and more intelligence at the edge. How network solutions will look will depend on fibre availability and the associated cost.

With eCPRI, Ethernet is becoming the convergence protocol for 5G transport. While grey and WDM (G.metro) optics, as well as next-generation PON, are all being discussed as optical underlay options. Grey and WDM optics offer an unbundling on the fibre/virtual fibre level whereas (TDM-)PON requires bitstream access. 

Another observation is that radio “x-haul” [‘x’ being front, mid or back] will continue to play an important role for locations where fibre is nonexistent and uneconomical.