OREANDA-NEWS. June 26, 2015. Proximus and Huawei, have successfully completed a joint trial in the backbone of Proximus resulting in speeds over an optical signal, a so called super-channel, of up to one Terabits per second (Tbps). This speed corresponds with the transmission of 33 HD films in a single second.

The future of the world will be super-connected, and a new round of digital revolutions has already started. More and more bandwidth will be needed to stay ahead of the needs of the customers and the telecom industry will have to be ready to cope with these increasing demands. A key component to make this possible is the backbone, the true core of a telecom network.

The trial is the first outcome of the partnership on innovation that Proximus and Huawei have engaged in January.It is the first time worldwide that this Huawei technology has been tested with an operator: a single super-channel OTN Card with a transmission speed of 1 Tbps on Proximus’ optical backbone.

The purpose of the test was to determine whether this technology can be integrated into the core network, to anticipate the constant and growing customers demand for more bandwidth. This successful trial shows that the Proximus future optical backbone with a capacity of 200Gbps channels, can quickly and efficiently, thanks to this Huawei technology, evolve to 400Gbps channels and even 1Tbps super channels in the future. By reusing the existing optical platform, chassis and slot, we can hence upgrade the transmission capacity of the core network links from 16Tbps to 20Tbps.

Technologic details of the trial

The record transmission speed was conducted over a 1,040 kilometer fiber link using an advanced ‘Flexgrid’ infrastructure with Huawei’s ‘Optical Switch Node OSN 9800 platform. This approach increases the capacity on a fiber cable by compressing the gaps between transmission channels. The technique increases the density of the transmission channels on fiber, making it around 150% more efficient than today’s typical 100Gbps core network links.

Unique is that the test was done with the Huawei 1Tbps OTN line card. OTN stands for Optical Transport Network and provides the functionality for efficient, flexible and data agnostic filling of high speed signals.

“The network is turning to DC (Data Center) centric, which brings a boost demand for increased bandwidth. Businesses are currently undergoing a digital transformation and consumers require always-on connectivity. Huawei supports its customers through innovation; together we build simplified networks ensuring the best user experience towards end users. This trial is testimony of Huawei’s engagement to innovation,” says Jeffrey Gao, President of the Huawei transmission network product line.

“At Proximus we pledge to satisfy the evolving customers demand by investing in new technologies to offer them the best quality and service. Together with Huawei we want to let our network infrastructure evolve to support current and future bandwidth demands and offer our customers an outstanding user experience,” says Geert Standaert, Chief Technology Officer at Proximus.