Telecoms' innovation problem and its wider cost

Imagine how useful 3D video calls would have been this last year.

The technologies needed - a light field display and digital compression techniques to send the resulting data across a network - do exist but practical holographic systems for communication remain years off.

Source: Accelerating Innovation in the Telecommunications Arena

But this is just the sort of application that telcos should be pursuing to benefit their businesses.

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Telefonica tests XGS-PON

Part 1: XGS and TWDM passive optical networks

Telefonica is the latest operator to test XGS-PON, the 10-gigabit passive optical networking standard.

“Operators want to show they are taking the maximum from their fibre investment,” says Ana Pesovic, marketing manager for fibre at Nokia, the supplier of the XGS-PON equipment used for the operator’s lab tests. “Telefonica has been really aggressive in their fibre deployments in the last couple of years.”

Ana Pesovic

XGS-PON

Approved by the ITU-T in 2016, XGS-PON supports two rates: 10-gigabit symmetrical and the asymmetrical rate of 10 gigabits downstream (to the user) and 2.5 gigabits upstream.

XGS-PON has largely superseded the earlier XG-PON standard which supports the 10-gigabit asymmetrical rate only. “It is fair to say there is no traction for XG-PON,” says Pesovic. “Even in China [an early adopter of XG-PON], we see the interest slowly moving to XGS-PON.”

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Telefónica tackles video growth with IP-MPLS network

• Telefónica’s video growth in one year has matched nine years of IP traffic growth 

• Optical mesh network in Barcelona will use CDC-ROADMs and 200-gigabit coherent line cards 

Telefónica has started testing an optical mesh network in Barcelona, adding to its existing optical mesh deployment across Madrid. Both mesh networks are based on 200-gigabit optical channels and high-degree reconfigurable add-drop multiplexers (ROADMs) that are part of the optical infrastructure that underpins the operator’s nationwide IP-MPLS network that is now under construction.

Maria Antonia CrespoThe operator decided to become a video telco company in late 2014 to support video-on-demand and over-the-top streaming video services.

Telefónica realised its existing IP and aggregation networks would not be able to accommodate the video traffic growth and started developing its IP-MPLS network.

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Europe gets its first TWDM-PON field trial

Vodafone is conducting what is claimed to be the first European field trial of a multi-wavelength passive optical networking system using access equipment from Alcatel-Lucent. 

Source: Alcatel-Lucent

The time- and wavelength-division multiplexed passive optical network (TWDM-PON) technology being used is a next-generation access scheme that follows on from 10 gigabit GPON (XG-PON1) and 10 gigabit EPON. 

“There appears to be much more 'real' interest in TWDM-PON than in 10G GPON,” says Julie Kunstler, principal analyst, components at Ovum. 

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Packet optical transport: Hollowing the network core

Intune Networks has developed an optical packet switching and transport (OPST) system that effectively turns fibre into a distributed switch.

The platform enables a fully-meshed metropolitan networkIntune Networks' CEO, Tim Fritzley (right) and John Dunne, co-founder and CTO with software support for web-based services, claims the Irish start-up. 

“What we have designed allows for the sharing of the same fibre switching assets across multiple services in the metro,” says Tim Fritzley, Intune’s CEO.

The company is in talks with several operators about its OPST system, which is being used for a nationwide network in Ireland. The system is also part of an EC seventh framework project that includes Spanish operator Telefónica.

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