A new approach to upgrading optical networking at the edge

In a world of 5G wireless networks and 400G Ethernet connections, it is easy to forget that other technologies can deliver significant benefits for users. Various technologies can drive enhanced services for carriers and their customers, thanks to some recent innovations. While the optical transport network (OTN) has been in the backbone of many carrier networks, offering the benefits of OTN direct to customers that require bandwidths below 1 Gbps has required complex and expensive network systems with up to five layers of multiplexing. Huawei’s new Liquid OTN solution seeks to massively reduce the complexity of low rate OTN connections and provide an all-optical upgrade path for users of low rate, time-division multiplexing (TDM) services such as E1 (2 Mbps) and E3 (34 Mbps).