OFC 2025 industry reflections - Part 3
Gazettabyte is asking industry figures for their thoughts after attending the OFC show in San Francisco. In the penultimate part, the contributions are from Cisco’s Bill Gartner, Lumentum’s Matt Sysak, Ramya Barna of Mixx Technologies, and Ericsson’s Antonio Tartaglia.
Bill Gartner, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Optical Systems and Optics, Cisco
There was certainly much buzz around co-packaged optics at Nvidia’s GTC event, and that carried over into OFC.
The prevailing thinking seems to be that large-scale co-packaged optics deployment is years away. While co-packaged optics has many benefits, there are challenges that need to be overcome before that happens.
Existing solutions, such as linear pluggable optics (LPO), continue to be discussed as interim solutions that could achieve close to the power savings of co-packaged optics and preserve a multi-vendor pluggable market. That development in the industry will be an intermediate solution before co-packaged optics is required.
By all accounts, IP-over-DWDM, or Routed Optical Networking as Cisco calls it, is now mainstream, enabling network operators to take advantage of the cost, space, and power savings in almost every part of the network.
Through the Openzr+ and Openroadm models, coherent pluggable usage has expanded beyond data centre interconnect (DCI) and metro applications. The subject was covered in many presentations and announcements, including several trials by Arelion and Internet2 of the new 800-gigabit ZR+ and 400-gigabit ultra-long-haul coherent pluggable. ZR and ZR+ pluggable optics now account for more than half of the coherent ports industry-wide.
I also saw some coherent-lite demonstrations, and while the ecosystem is expanding, it appears this will be a corner case for the near future.
Lastly, power reduction was another strong theme, which is where co-packaged optics, LPO, and linear retimed optics (LRO) originated. As optics, switches, routers, and GPU (graphics processor unit) servers become faster and denser, data centres cannot support the insatiable need for more power. Network operators and equipment manufacturers are seeking alternative ways to lower power, such as liquid cooling and liquid immersion.
What did I learn at OFC? Pradeep Sindhu, Technical Fellow and Corporate Vice President of Silicon with Microsoft, gave one of the plenary talks. He believes we should stop racing to higher lane speeds because it will compromise scale. He believes 200 gigabits per second (Gbps) is a technology sweet spot.
As for show surprises, the investor presence was markedly larger than usual, a positive for the industry. With almost 17,000 people attending OFC this year and AI driving incremental bandwidth that optics will serve, you could feel the excitement on the show floor.
We’re looking forward to seeing what technologies will prevail in 2026.
Matt Sysak, CTO, Cloud and Networking Platform at Lumentum.
The industry spotlight at OFC was on next-generation data centre interconnects and growing AI-driven bandwidth demands.
Several suppliers demonstrated 400 gigabit-per-lane optics, with Lumentum showcasing both 450 gigabit-per-second (Gbps) indium phosphide Mach-Zehnder and 448 gigabit-per-lane externally modulated laser (EML) technologies.
In long-haul networking, the continued expansion of data centre traffic across longer fibre spans drives demand for high-capacity solutions such as 800G ZR C+L band transceivers. I learned at the show that the focus has shifted from incremental upgrades to building fundamentally new network layers capable of supporting AI workloads at scale. Conversations around innovations such as 400-gigabit DFB Mach-Zehnder lasers and advancements in optical circuit switches made it clear that the industry is driving innovation across every network layer.
One of the biggest surprises was the surge in optical circuit switch players. The core technology has expanded beyond traditional micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) to include liquid crystal and silicon photonics approaches. There is clearly growing demand for high-radix, low-power optical interconnects to address rising data centre power consumption.
With our proven expertise in MEMS and the ability to scale port counts with low insertion loss, we believe Lumentum’s optical circuit switch offers clear advantages over competing technologies.
Ramya Barna, Head of Marketing and Key Partnerships, Mixx Technologies.
It was evident at OFC 2025 that the industry is entering a new phase, not just of optical adoption but also of architectural introspection.
Co-packaged optics was the dominant theme on the show floor, with vendors aligning around tighter electrical-optical integration at the switch level. However, discussions with hyperscalers were more layered and revealing.
Meta spoke about the need for full-stack co-optimisation: treating photonics not just as a peripheral, but as part of the compute fabric.
AWS emphasised co-designing power and photonics—optics and electricity as first-class citizens in infrastructure planning.
Microsoft, meanwhile, challenged the community on reliability and manufacturability at the DRAM scale, demanding optics that can be trusted, such as memory.
These inputs reinforce a core truth: the AI bottleneck is not compute capacity, but bandwidth, latency, and power at scale.
The current wave of co-packaged optics implementations is a step forward, but it remains constrained by legacy system boundaries where retimers, linear interfaces, and electrical serdes bottlenecks still dominate.
At Mixx, we’ve long viewed this not as an integration problem but an architectural one. AI infrastructure requires a redesign in which photonics is not bolted on but directly integrated into compute—native optical paths between ASICs. That is our thesis with optical input-output (I/O).
OFC 2025 reinforced that the industry is converging on the same realisation: optical interfaces must move deeper into the package, closer to the logic. We’re aligned on timelines, and most importantly, on the problem definition.
Looking forward to OFC 2026, where system-level transformation takes over.
Antonio Tartaglia, System Manager and Expert in Photonics at Radio and Transport Engineering, Transport Systems at Ericsson.
The effort invested in traditional telecom connectivity is decreasing, and more attention is being paid to solutions that have the potential to unlock new revenue streams for communications service providers (CSP).
A good example is distributed fibre sensing, which involves reusing deployed telecom-grade fibre plants. Optical connectivity for satellite communications was also a trending topic, with much excitement about low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellites as a complement to radio access networks (RAN).
OFC 2025 highlighted that the telecom industry must continue to reuse wisely and adapt optical technologies developed for datacom, which is acting as the innovation powerhouse for the whole industry.
The only way to reuse the solutions developed for data centres is, well … to build a data centre. Still, the same basic technologies can often be reused and adapted to telecom use cases with reasonable development effort.
I believe industry-wide initiatives (MSAs, alliances, consortia) pursuing this objective will become even more critical for telecom.
Speaking of the segment close to my heart – optical connectivity for RAN – the adaptation of datacom technologies works fine for short reach (<2km) optical interconnects, where we reuse one optical lane of data centres’ multi-lane optical interfaces.
After OFC 2025, I believe the relentless optimisation of coherent technology towards shorter and shorter reaches, and the concurrent rise of packet fronthaul in RAN, could pave the way for a new breed of ‘coherent-lite’ optical solutions for radio transport networks.
It was awe-inspiring to hear talks on scaling AI compute clusters, which are now aiming at the ‘psychological’ threshold of AI models with 100 trillion parameters—the estimated compute power of a human brain.
This journey will require clusters of millions of interconnected GPUs resulting in 2 megawatt data centres, with electric power availability limiting the choice of locations. An emerging research area to reduce power is integrated optics “optical co-processors” for GPUs, performing energy-efficient vector-to-matrix multiplications in the optical domain. Although technology readiness is low, start-ups are already working on this challenge.
The most obvious solution to the power conundrum seems to be dividing these GPU mega-clusters across smaller sites. This approach will increase the demand on data centre interconnects (DCI), requiring them to function as long-haul RDMA (remote direct memory access) interconnects.
These interconnects will need ultra-low latency and precise time synchronisation, which could be very attractive for future RAN transport needs.
OFC Rump Session: Reimagining global comms
Imagine a world plunged into digital silence. No texts, calls, emails, or internet.
At this year’s OFC conference in San Francisco, three teams of telecommunications experts will tackle a provocative thought experiment as part of the Rump Session: if Earth’s entire communication infrastructure vanished overnight, how would they rebuild it?
With a clean slate and ten years until implementation, the teams will outline what they consider is the ideal replacement global network.
The Rump Session’s audience will choose the best solution.
The scenario
OFC is asking the three teams of experts to imagine a world where global communication has been destroyed following an exceptional event.
Thankfully, only the network has been destroyed: manufacturing facilities, R&D sites, and communications expertise remain intact. So humanity has a chance to design a brand new network unencumbered by legacy equipment.
The ten-year implementation window is to allow emerging technologies to be considered as part of the new network build.
Considerations
Gazettabyte asked two telecom specialists outside the optical community how they would tackle the networking challenge.
If all the communications networks are down – fixed, mobile, satellite and broadcast – then it makes sense to get a simple universal comms system up and running as fast as possible, says William Webb, a consultant and author.
That would ensure there is enough communications to keep the population informed and allow those working on more complex systems to have communications while doing their design work.
For Dean Bubley, analyst and founder of Disruptive Analysis, the scenario triggers many questions.
Where will the demarcation point be between optical, wired and wireless networks?
“Is wireless just for the last kilometer or the last 10 meters of the access network?” says Bubley. “Or does wireless have a role for long-haul and transport as well, especially given the lower latency, and higher speed of light through air or a vacuum than through glass.”
Bubley wonders how to build in an expectation of continued innovation. Avoiding lock-in or static solutions is important: “Standards are fine, but there needs to be scope to try new things as well.”
Should Government oversee the restoration project or is the best approach to encourage competition and free market wherever possible? “Where does regulation fit and what does it focus on?” says Bubley.
Webb says the quickest way to get going is satellite coverage and portable antennas so people can use it when on the move even if it is nothing like as convenient as cellular.
The next stage would to launch High Altitude Platforms (HAPs) – tethered balloons and similar – to deliver cellular coverage relatively quickly.
A mix of tethered balloons near cities and high-altitude drones for other areas would deliver cellular comms within months, bringing cellular online at 4G-like capabilities.
“We can then work on a combined fixed-mobile solution. The ideal solution would have one fibre network delivering comms to homes, offices and cellular/Wi-Fi base stations, and one set of masts, ” says Webb.
Webb would forego network competition: it’s better to build a near-perfect network and then have a wholesale-retail split.
“Build from cities outwards, and stop building when the HAPs and satellite solution has the capacity to manage residual premises. Assume fibre to the edge of premises and Wi-Fi inside,” says Webb.
He would not rebuild cable networks or copper networks.
“But this sort of thing is best done by getting a group of us together and debating and discussing,” says Webb.
Just what the OFC Rump Session will do.
Origins
Antonio Tartaglia, one of this year’s Rump Session organisers, came up with the evening event’s theme.
“The Rump Session has always been my favourite OFC event. Joining the OFC Technical Program Committee, I was asked to contribute ideas,” says Tartaglia. “As a member of the public, I asked myself: ‘What is the Rump Session you’ve been dreaming of?’”
Tartaglia, system manager and expert in photonics technologies at Ericsson, is keen to learn what the teams of experts will come up with.
His educated guess is that optical technologies will take the lion’s share of the new network.
“It will also be hard to ignore low-earth orbit (LEO) satellite technology, that provides coverage where other technologies would not make economic sense,” says Tartaglia. Optical technologies will also play a big role here.
“But even in a brand-new world, I expect LEO satellites to complement, not replace terrestrial mobile networks as we know them,” says Tartaglia. “They are the result of decades of deep optimisation.”
“As scientists and engineers, we spend so much of our day-to-day work on improving the current state-of-the-art networks and taking that small next step forward in terms of technology, product or a solution,” says Dirk van den Borne, another of the Rump Session organisers.
He finds it intriguing to imagine how engineers would design the network if they could ignore existing installed equipment.
“This session will be thought-provoking and might spur great conversations at the conference and beyond,” says van den Borne, director of system engineering at Juniper Networks.
Rump Session details:
- When: April 1st Time:
- Evening time: 19:30 to 21:00
- Location: Rooms 203-204 (Level 2)
The APC’s blueprint for silicon photonics
The Advanced Photonics Coalition (APC) wants to smooth the path for silicon photonics to become a high-volume manufacturing technology.
The organisation is talking to companies to tackle issues whose solutions will benefit the photonics technology.
The Advanced Photonics Coalition wants to act as an industry catalyst to prove technologies and reduce the risk associated with their development, says Jeffery Maki, Distinguished Engineer at Juniper Networks and a member of the Advanced Photonics Coalition’s board.
Origins
The Advanced Photonics Coalition was unveiled at the Photonic-Enabled Cloud Computing (PECC) Industry Summit jointly held with Optica last October.
The Coalition was formerly known as the Coalition for On-Board Optics (COBO), an industry initiative led by Microsoft.
Microsoft wanted a standard for on-board optics, until then it was a proprietary technology. At the time, on-board optics was seen as an important stepping stone between pluggable optical modules and their ultimate successor, co-packaged optics.
After years of work developing specifications and products, Microsoft chose not to adopt on-board optics in its data centres. Although COBO added other work activities, such as co-packaged optics, the organisation lost momentum and members.
Maki stresses that COBO always intended to tackle other work besides its on-board optics starting point.
Now, this is the Advanced Photonics Coalition’s goal: to have a broad remit to create working groups to address a range of issues.
Tackling technologies
Many standards organisations publish specifications but leave the implementation technologies to their member companies. In contrast, the Advanced Photonics Coalition is taking a technology focus. It wants to remove hurdles associated with silicon photonics to ease its adoption.
“Today, we see the artificial intelligence and machine learning opportunities growing, both in software and hardware,” says Maki. “We see a need in the coming years for more hardware and innovative solutions, especially in power, latency, and interconnects.”
Work Groups
In the past, systems vendors like Cisco or Juniper drove industry initiatives, and other companies fell in line. More recently, it was the hyperscalers that took on the role.
There is less of that now, says Maki: “We have a lot of companies with technologies and good ideas, but there is not a strong leadership.”
The Advanced Photonics Coalition wants to fill that void and address companies’ common concerns in critical areas. “Key customers will then see the value of, and be able to access, that standard or technology that’s then fostered,” says Maki.
The Advanced Photonics Coalition has yet to announce new working groups but it expects to do so in 2024.
One area of interest is silicon photonics foundries and their process design kits (PDKs). Each foundry has a PDK, made up of tools, models, and documentation, to help engineers with the design and manufacture of photonic integrated devices.
“A starting point might be support for more than one foundry in a multi-foundry PDK,” says Maki. “Perhaps a menu item to select the desired foundry where more than one foundry has been verified to support.”
Silicon photonics has long been promoted as a high-volume manufacturing technology for the optical industry. “But it is not if it has been siloed into separate efforts such that there is not that common volume,” says Maki.
Such a PDK effort would identify gaps that each foundry would need to fill. “The point is to provide for more than one foundry to be able to produce the item,” he says.
A company is also talking to the Advanced Photonics Coalition about co-packaged optics. The company has developed an advanced co-packaged optics solution, but it is proprietary.
“Even with a proprietary offering, one can make changes to improve market acceptance,” says Maki. The aim is to identify the areas of greatest contention and remedy them first, for example, the external laser source. “Opening that up to other suppliers through standards adoption, existing or new, is one possibility,” he says.
The Advanced Photonics Coalition is also exploring optical interconnecting definitions with companies. “How we do fibre-attached to silicon photonics, there’s a desire that there is standardisation to open up the market more,” says Maki. “That’s more surgical but still valuable.”
And there are discussions about a working group to address co-packaged optics for the radio access network (RAN). Ericsson is one company interested in co-packaged optics for the RAN. Another working group being discussed could tackle optical backplanes.
Maki says there are opportunities here to benefit the industry.
“Companies should understand that nothing is slowing them down or blocking them from doing something other than their ingenuity or their own time,” he says.
Status
COBO had 50 members earlier in 2023. Now, the membership listed on the website has dropped to 39 and the number could further dip; companies that joined for COBO may still decide to leave.
At the time of writing, an new as yet unannounced member has joined the Advanced Photonics Coalition, taking the membership to 40.
“Some of those companies that left, we think they will return once we get the working groups formed,” says Maki, who remains confident that the organisation will play an important industry role.
“Every time I have a conversation with a company about the status of the market and the needs that they see for the coming years, there’s good alignment amongst multiple companies,” he says.
There is an opportunity for an organisation to focus on the implementation aspects and the various technology platforms and bring more harmony to them, something other standards organisations don’t do, says Maki.
Ciena offers enterprises vNF pick and choose
Ciena, working with partners, has developed a platform for service providers to offer enterprises network functions they can select and configure with the click of a button.
Dubbed Agility Matrix, the product enables enterprises to choose their IT and connectivity services using software running on servers. It also promises to benefit service providers' revenues, enabling more adventurous service offerings due to the flexibility and new business models the virtual network functions (vNFs) enable. Currently, managed services require specialist equipment and on-site engineering visits for their set-up and management, while the contracts tend to be lengthy and inflexible.
"It offers an ecosystem of vNF vendors with a licensing structure that can give operators flexibility and vendors a revenue stream," says Eric Hanselman, chief analyst at 451 Research. "There are others who have addressed the different pieces of the puzzle, but Ciena has wrapped the products with the business tools to make it attractive to all of the players involved."
Ciena has created an internal division, dubbed Ciena Agility, to promote the venture. The unit has 100 staff while its technology, Agility Matrix, is being trialled by service providers although Ciena has declined to say how many.
"Why a separate devision? To move fast in a market that is moving rapidly," says Kevin Sheehan, vice president and general manager of Ciena Agility.
The unit inherits Agility products previously announced by Ciena. These include the multi-layer WAN controller that Ciena is co-developing with Ericsson, and certain applications that run on the software-defined networking (SDN) controller.
"The unique aspect of Ciena’s offering is the comprehensive approach to virtualised functions, says Hanselman. "It tackles everything from service orchestration out to monetisation."
Source: Ciena
What has been done
Agility Matrix comprises three elements: the vNF Market, Director and the host. The vNF Market is cloud-based and enables a service provider to offer a library of vNFs that its enterprise customers can choose from. An enterprise IT manager can select the vNFs required using a secure portal.
The Director, the second element, does the rest. The Director, built using Openstack software, delivers the vNFs to the host, an x86 instruction set-based server located at the enterprise's premises or in the service provider's central office or data centre.
The Director generates a software licence, the enterprise customer confirms the vNFs are working, which prompts the Director to generate post-payment charging data records. The VNF Market then invoices the service provider and pays the vNF vendors selected.
"Agility Matrix enables a pay-as-you-earn model for the service provider, much different from today's managed services providers' experiences," says Sheenan, who points out that a service provider currently buys custom hardware in bulk based on their enterprise-demand forecast, shipping products one by one. Now, with Agility Matrix, the service provider pays for a licence only after its enterprise customer has purchased one.
Ciena has launched Agility Matrix with five vNF partners. The partners and their vNF products are shown in the table.
Source: Gazettabyte
AT&T Domain 2.0 programme
Ciena is one of the vendors selected by AT&T for its Supplier Domain 2.0 programme. Does AT&T's programme influence this development?
“We are always working with our customers on addressing their current and future problems," says Sheehan. "When we bring something like Agility Matrix to the market, it is created by working with our partners and customers to develop a solution that is designed to meet everyone’s needs."
"Ciena has application programming interfaces that can support integration at several levels, but it is not clear that Agility is part of the deployment within Domain 2.0," says Hanselman. "The interesting things in Domain 2.0 are the automation and virtualisation pieces; Ciena can handle the automation part with its existing products."
Meanwhile, AT&T has announced its 'Network on Demand' that enables businesses to add and change network services in 'near real-time' using a self-service online portal.
Ciena adds software to enhance network control
Engineers at Ciena have developed software to provide service providers with greater control over their networks. The operators' customers will also benefit from the software control, using a web portal to meet their own networking needs.
Source: Ciena
"Networks can become more dynamic," says Tom Mock, senior vice president, corporate communications at Ciena. "Operators can now offer more on-demand services." If much work has been done in recent years to make the network's lower layers dynamic, attention is turning to software to make the networks programmable, he says.
Ciena's announced Agility software portfolio, which resides in the network management centre running on standard computing hardware, includes:
- A multi-layer software-defined networking (SDN) controller
- Three networking applications: Navigate, Protect and Optimize. Navigate is used to determine the ideal route for a connection, Protect is a restoration path calculator used to protect against network failures, while Optimize frees up stranded bandwidth across the network's layers.
- Enhancements to Ciena's existing V-WAN network services module.
Ciena chose to implement the SDN controller using the OpenDaylight framework to ensure it will work with other vendors' equipment, while third-party developers writing software using the open source framework will benefit from Ciena's apps and platforms.
"We think the market is evolving so quickly that there isn't any one company that can deal with all the things end users will require," says Mock. "This idea of openness is not so much a nice thing as a requirement; it is going to require the cooperation of multiple vendors to build the kind of network that service providers are going to require."
At the top of the SDN architecture is the application layer, which resides above the control layer that, in turn, oversees the underlying infrastructure layer where the equipment resides. Agility's three network applications sit above the SDN controller while still being part of the control layer (see diagram).
This idea of openness is not so much a nice thing as a requirement; it is going to require the cooperation of multiple vendors to build the kind of network that service providers are going to require
End users can now control their network requirements using the V-WAN orchestrator. Ciena has added monitoring and control interfaces to enhance V-WAN. End users can now control their networking requirements using a web portal. The operator and the end user also have improved visibility about the network's health due to the performance monitoring. More plug-in adaptors have also been added to interface the platform to more equipment, while service providers can use V-WAN to set up VPNs for multiple users.
"[V-WAN] provides for an outside application to control the network directly," says Mock. "A service provider doesn't have to change the connectivity map, or establish or take down a connection."
V-WAN sits between the SDN's upper two layers, allowing applications in the applications layer to access the SDN controller. Ciena has already detailed work with Brocade that allows the vendor's data centre orchestrator - the Application Resource Broker (ARB) used to set up storage and compute resources - can request cloud resources in a remote data centre when demand can no longer be fulfilled in the existing one. Ciena has provided a plug-in adapter between Brocade's orchestrator and V-WAN to establish a connection between the data centres to allow workload transfers as required.
V-WAN will also be used by Equinix to allow end users to connect its data centres with other cloud computing providers. "If an Equinix end user today wants to run part of their applications on Amazon, they can do that, and if tomorrow they have a different set of applications that they want to run on Microsoft, they can do that as well, without changing a real lot of their physical infrastructure," says Mock.
The Agility software portfolio is Ciena's own work, developed prior to its strategic partnership with Ericsson that was announced earlier this year. However, the two companies are now working to add Ericsson's layer-3 capability to the OpenDaylight SDN controller. Mock says the enhanced SDN controller will be available in 2015.
Meanwhile, the V-WAN product is available now. The SDN controller and the three network applications are being trialled and will be available later this year.
OFC 2014 industry reflections - Part 1
T.J. Xia, distinguished member of technical staff at Verizon
The CFP2 form factor pluggable - analogue coherent optics (CFP2-ACO) at 100 and 200 Gig will become the main choice for metro core networks in the near future.
I learnt that the discrete multitone (DMT) modulation format seems the right choice for a low-cost, single-wavelength direct-detection 100 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) interface for data ports, and a 4xDMT for 400GbE ports.
As for developments to watch, photonic switches will play a much more important role for intra-data centre connections. As the port capacity of top-of-rack switches gets larger, photonic switches have more cost advantages over middle stage electrical switches.
Don McCullough, Ericsson's director of strategic communications at group function technology
The biggest trend in networking right now is software-defined networking (SDN) and Network Function Virtualisation (NFV), and both were on display at OFC. We see that the combination of SDN and NFV in the control and software domains will directly impact optical networks. The Ericsson-Ciena partnership embodies this trend with its agreement to develop joint transport solutions for IP-optical convergence and service provider SDN.
We learnt that network transformation, both at the control layer (SDN and NFV) and at the data plane layer, including optical, is happening at the network operators. Related to that, we also saw interest at OFC in the announcement that AT&T made at Mobile World Congress about their User-Defined Network Cloud and Domain 2.0 strategy where AT&T has selected to work with Ericsson on integration and transformation services.
We will continue to watch the on-going deployment of SDN and NFV to control wide area networks including optical. We expect more joint developments agreements to connect SDN and NFV with optical networking, like the Ericsson-Ciena one.
One new thing for 2014 is that we expect to see open source projects like OpenStack and Open DayLight play increasingly important roles in the transformation of networks.
Brandon Collings, JDSU's CTO for communications and commercial optical products
The announcements of integrated photonics for coherent CFP2s was an important development in the 100 Gig progression. While JDSU did not make an announcement at OFC, we are similarly engaged with our customers on pluggable approaches for coherent 100 Gig.
I would like to see convergence around 400 Gig client interface standards
There is a lack of appreciation of the data centre operators who aren’t big household names. While the mega data centre operators have significant influence and visibility, the needs of the numerous, smaller-sized operators are largely under-represented.
I would like to see convergence around 400 Gig client interface standards. Lots of complex technology here, challenges to solve and options to do so. But ambiguity in these areas is typically detrimental to the overall industry.
Mike Freiberger, principal member of technical staff, Verizon
The emergence of 100 Gig for metro, access, and data centre reach optics generated a lot of contentious debate. Maybe the best way forward as an industry isn’t really solidified just yet.
What did I learn? Verizon is a leader in wireless backhaul and is growing its options at a rate faster than the industry.
The two developments that caught my attention are 100 Gig short-reach and above-100-Gig research. 100 Gig short-reach because this will set the trigger point for the timing of 100 Gig interfaces really starting to sell in volume. Research on data rates faster than 100 Gig because price-per-bit always has to come downward.
Ericsson and Ciena collaborate on IP-over-WDM and SDN
Jan Häglund
Ericsson and Ciena have signed a global strategic agreement that provides Ericsson with Ciena's optical networking technology, while Ciena benefits from Ericsson's broader service provider relationships.
In particular, Ciena's WaveLogic coherent optical processor will be integrated into a module and added to Ericsson's Smart Service IP routers, while Ericsson will resell Ciena's 6500 Packet-Optical Platform and 5400 Reconfigurable Switching Systems.
Both companies will also collaborate in developing SDN in the WAN, also known as service provider SDN or Transport SDN.
IP-over-WDM will grow rapidly, accounting for over 30 percent of the total market by 2020.
Ericsson says the IP market will reach US $15 billion and optical networking $10 billion in 2014. Jan Häglund, vice president, head of IP and broadband at Ericsson, says the two markets are not independent and that IP-over-WDM will grow rapidly, accounting for over 30 percent of the total market by 2020.
Ciena's motivation for the deal is somewhat different.
"We are focussed on packet optical convergence - Layer 2 down to Layer 0 - creating a scalable, cost effective WAN infrastructure for service providers," said James Frodsham, Ciena’s senior vice president and chief strategy officer. "We have been looking around our core value proposition, we have been looking to expand our distribution into geographies and customers where we lack presense." The deal with Ericsson clearly addresses that, he says.
There is now more to think about. It is a very interesting time.
James Frodsham, Ciena
The company also has a different view regarding IP-over-WDM. IP routers are a vital part of the network but for cost reasons they are better used in centralised locations, interconnected using packet optical networking, said Tom Mock, senior vice president, corporate communications at Ciena.
Working with Ericsson widens the network applications Ciena can address. "But our view of the prevalence of IP-over-WDM hasn't really changed," said Mock.
Tom MockEricsson and Ciena both highlight the changes taking place in the network, namely Network Functions Virtualisation (NFV) and SDN, as another reason for the tie-up.
NFV is turning telecom functions that previously required dedicated platforms into software that is virtualised and executed on servers. NFV promises to bring to telecom the benefits of IT and cloud computing, enabling operators to introduce services more quickly and scale them according to demand.
SDN, meanwhile, not only oversees such virtualised services, but also the network layers over which they run. This is where IP-over-WDM plays a role and why the two companies are working to develop Transport SDN.
It also gives us exposure to the Evolved Packet Core that is going into new wireless installations
Ciena's optical infrastructure and Ericsson's service-provider SDN and IP portfolio will result in a competitive solution, said Ericsson. "Combining the two network layers, and jointly making sure that the control protocol optimises the traffic network, will lead to CapEx and OpEx savings," said Ericsson's Häglund, in a company webcast announcing the deal.
Other benefits of the agreement include growing Ciena's relationships with services providers, especially in wireless. "It also gives us exposure to the Evolved Packet Core that is going into new wireless installations," said Mock.
Ciena also highlights Ericsson's strengths in operations and business support systems (OSS/ BSS). Ciena says the transition to SDN will be gradual. "That evolution is going to have to take into account OSS/ BSS technologies and having a partner that is strong in that area will help us both," said Mock.
Ciena believes more such industry collaboration should be expected. "We see that with programs like AT&T's Domain 2.0 Program, such thinking is also happening in the marketplace," said Mock. For the Supplier Domain 2.0 Program, AT&T is selecting vendors to provide a modern, cloud-based architecture that includes NFV and SDN technologies.
The collaboration between Ciena and Ericsson should boost their position as possible Domain 2.0 suppliers. "Both of us are suppliers under AT&T's current domain program, and as with any relationship, incumbency has advantages" said Mock. "The fact that we are beginning to collaborate on SDN-oriented applications ought to help."
Industry collaboration between telecom vendors and IT equipment providers will also likely increase.
"The data centre is a very important piece of real-estate in the future infrastructure," said Frodsham. The data centre hosts the storage and servers that manage the bulk of applications that pass across the network. Greater collaboration will be needed between telco and IT vendors to optimise how the data centre interacts with the WAN.
"There is now more to think about," said Frodsham. "It is a very interesting time."
Will LTE lead to new revenues for the operators?
The opportunities and challenges the Long Term Evolution (LTE) standard poses for mobile operators. An article for the Mobile World Congress show for the magazine Informilo, click here.
AT&T domain suppliers
|
Date |
Domain |
Partners |
|
Sept 2009 |
Wireline Access |
Ericsson |
|
Feb 2010 |
Radio Access Network |
Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson |
|
April 2010 |
Optical and transport equipment |
Ciena |
|
July 2010 |
IP/MPLS/Ethernet/Evolved Packet Core |
Alcatel-Lucent, Juniper, Cisco |
The table shows the selected players in AT&T's domain supplier programme announced to date.
AT&T has stated that there will likely be eight domain supplier categories overall so four more have still to be detailed.
Looking at the list, several thoughts arise:
- AT&T has already announced wireless and wireline infrastructure providers whose equipment spans the access network all the way to ultra long-haul. The networking technologies also address the photonic layer to IP or layer 3.
- Alcatel-Lucent and Ericsson already play in two domains while no Asian vendor has yet to be selected.
- One or two more players may be added to the wireline access and optical and transport infrastructure domains but this part of the network is pretty much done.
So what domains are left? Peter Jarich, service director at market research firm Current Analysis, suggests the following:
- Datacentre
- OSS/BSS
- IP Service Layer (IP Multimedia Subsystem, subscriber data management, service delivery platform)
- Voice Core (circuit, softswitch)
- Content Delivery (IP TV, etc.)
AT&T was asked to comment but the operator said that it has not detailed any domains beyond those that have been announced.
|
Date |
Domain |
Partners |
|
Sept 2009 |
Wireline Access |
Ericsson |
|
Feb 2010 |
Radio Access Network |
Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson |
|
April 2010 |
Optical and transport equipment |
Ciena |
|
July 2010 |
IP/MPLS/Ethernet/Evolved Packet Core |
Alcatel-Lucent, Juniper, Cisco |
Wireless backhaul: The many routes to packet
ECI Telecom has detailed its wireless backhaul offering that spans the cell tower to the metro network. The 1Net wireless backhaul architecture supports traditional Sonet/SDH to full packet transport, with hybrid options in between, across various physical media.
“We can support any migration scheme an operator may have over any type of technology and physical medium, be it copper, fibre or microwave,” says Gil Epshtein, senior product marketing manager, network solutions division at ECI Telecom.
Why is this important?
Operators are experiencing unprecedented growth in wireless data due to the rise of smart phones and notebooks with 3G dongles for mobile broadband.
Mobile data surpassed voice traffic for the first time in December 2009, according to Ericsson, with the crossover occurring at approximately 140,000 terabytes per month in both voice and data traffic. According to Infonetics Research, mobile broadband subscribers surpassed digital subscriber line (DSL) subscribers in 2009, and will grow to 1.5 billion worldwide in 2014. By then, there will be 3.6 exabytes (3.6 billion gigabytes) per month of mobile data traffic, with two thirds being wireless video, forecasts Cisco Systems.
“The challenge is that almost all the growth is packet internet traffic, and that is not well suited to sit on the classic TDM backhaul network originally designed for voice,” says Michael Howard, principal analyst, carrier and data center networks at Infonetics Research. TDM refers to time division multiplexing based on Sonet/SDH where for wireless backhaul T1/E1lines are used.
“There is a gap between the technology hype and real life”
Gil Epshtein, ECI Telecom
The fast growth also implies an issue of scale, with the larger mobile operators having many cell sites to backhaul. E1/TI lines are also expensive even if prices are coming down, says Howard: “It is much cheaper to use Ethernet as a transport – the cost per bit is enormously better.”
This is why operators are keen to upgrade their wireless backhaul networks from Sonet/SDH to packet-based Ethernet transport. “But there is a gap between the technology hype and real life,” says Epshtein. Operators have already invested heavily in existing backhaul infrastructure and upgrading to packet will be costly. The operators also know that projected revenues from data services will not keep pace with traffic growth.
“Operators are faced with how to build out their backhaul infrastructures to meet service demands at cost points that provide an adequate return on investment,” says Glen Hunt, principal analyst, carrier transport and routing at Current Analysis. Such costs are multi-faceted, he says, on the capital side and the operational side. “Carriers do not want to buy an inexpensive device that adds complexity to network operations which then offsets any capital savings.”
“It is much cheaper to use Ethernet as a transport –the cost per bit is enormously better.”
Michael Howard, Infonetics Research
To this aim, ECI offers operators a choice of migration schemes to packet-based backhaul. Its solution supports T1/E1lines and Ethernet frame encapsulation over TDM, Ethernet overlay networks, and packet-only networks (see chart above).
With Ethernet overlay, an Ethernet network runs alongside the TDM network. The two can co-exist within a common network element, what ECI calls embedded Ethernet overlay, or separately using distinct TDM and packet switch platforms. And when an operator adopts all-packet, legacy TDM traffic can be carried over packets using circuit emulation pseudo-wire technology.
“ECI’s offering is significant since it includes all the components and systems necessary to handle nearly any type of backhaul requirement,” says Hunt. The same is true for most of the larger system vendors, he says. However, many vendors integrate third party devices to complete their solutions – ECI itself has done this with microwave. But with 1NET for wireless backhaul, ECI will now offer its own microwave backhaul systems.
According to Infonetics, between 55% and 60% of all backhaul links are microwave outside of North America. And 80% of all microwave sales are for mobile backhaul. Moreover, Infonetics estimates that 70 to 80% of operator spending on mobile backhaul through 2012 will be on microwave. “Those are the figures that explain why ECI has decided to go it alone,” says Howard. Until now ECI has used products from its microwave specialist partner, Ceragon Networks.
“ECI has all the essential features that the other big players have like Ericsson, Alcatel-Lucent, Nokia Siemens Networks and Huawei,” says Howard. What is different is that ECI does not supply radio access network (RAN) equipment such as basestations. “It is ok, though, because almost all of the [operator] backhaul tenders separate between RAN and backhaul,” says Howard.
ECI argues that by adopting a technology-agnostic approach, it can address operators’ requirements without forcing them down a particular path. “Operators are looking for guidance as to which path is best from this transition,” says Epshtein. There is no one-model fits all. “We have so many exceptions you really need to look on a case-by-case basis.”
In developed markets, for example, the building of packet overlay is generally happening faster. Some operators with fixed line networks have already moved to packet and that, in theory, simplifies upgrading the backhaul to packet. But organisational issues across an operator’s business units can complicate and delay matters, he says.
And Epshtein cites one European operator that will use its existing network to accommodate growth in data services over the coming years: “It is putting aside the technology hype and looking at the bottom line."
In emerging markets, moving to packet is happening more slowly as mobile users’ income is limited. But on closer inspection this too varies. In Africa, certain operators are moving straight to all-IP, says Ephstein, whereas others are taking a gradual approach.
What’s been done?
ECI has launched new products as well as upgraded existing ones as part of its 1NET wireless backhaul offering.
The company has announced its BG-Wave microwave systems. There are two offerings: an all-packet microwave system and a hybrid one that supports both TDM and Ethernet traffic. ECI says that having its own microwave products will allow it to gain a foothold with operators it has not had design wins before.
“ECI will need to prove the value of its microwave products with actual field deployments”
Glen Hunt, Current Analysis
ECI has announced two additional 9000 carrier Ethernet switch routers (CESR) families: the 9300 and 9600. These have switching capacities and a product size more suited to backhaul. The switches support Layer 3 IP-MPLS and Layer 2 MPLS-TP, as well as the SyncE and IEEE 1588 Version 2 synchronisation protocols.
ECI has also upgraded its XDM multi-service provisioning platform (MSPP) to enable an embedded overlay with Ethernet and TDM traffic supported within the platform.
“When an operator is choosing to add packet backhaul to existing TDM backhaul, typically it is a separate network – they keep voice on TDM and add a second network for packet,” says Howard. This hybrid approach involves adding another set of equipment. “ECI has added functions to existing equipment, which operators may already have, that allows two networks to run over a single set of products.”
Also included in the solution are ECI’s BroadGate and its Hi-FOCuS multi-service access node (MSAN). This is not for operators to deploy the platform for wireless backhaul but rather those operators that have the MSAN can now use it for backhauling traffic, says Ephstein. This is useful in dense urban areas and for operators offering wholesale services to other operators.
All the network elements are controlled using ECI’s LightSoft management system.
“ECI’s solution has the advantage that all the systems use the same operating system and support the same features,” says Hunt. He cites the example of MPLS-TP which is implemented on ECI’s carrier Ethernet and optical platforms.
“ECI has a full range of platforms that all work together to meet the needs of mobile as well as fixed operator,” says Hunt. “ECI will need to prove the value of its microwave products with actual field deployments.”
Operator interest
ECI has secured general telecom wins with large incumbent operators in Western Europe and has been winning business in Eastern Europe, Russia, India and parts of Asia.
ECI’s sweet spot has been its relationship with Tier 2 and Tier 3 operators, says Hunt, and since the company offers broadband access, optical transport, and carrier Ethernet, it can use these successes to help expand into areas such as wireless backhaul.
But wireless backhaul is already a key part of the company’s business, accounting for over 30% of revenues, says Ephstein. Late last year ECI estimated that it was carrying between 30% and 40% of the mobile backbone traffic in India, a rapidly growing market.
As for 1NET wireless backhaul, ECI has announced one win so far - Israeli mobile operator Cellcom which has selected the 9000 CESR family. “Cellcom shows that ECI can continue to expand its presence in the network - in this case leveraging business Ethernet services to add backhaul,” says Hunt.
In addition one European operator, as yet unnamed, has selected ECI’s embedded overlay. “Several other operators are in various stages of selecting the right option for them,” says Ephstein.
- For some ECI wireless backhaul papers and case studies, click here