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 […]

Open RAN promises many things; disaggregation, virtualization, a wider ecosystem, less reliance on a small number of suppliers, multivendor interoperability, a greater role for white box systems, more cost effective and scalable solutions, faster time to deployment and integration opportunities with edge computing. In time, many of these will be delivered but there is still […]

The migration to 5G is critical for carriers who are also moving towards cloud RANs and wanting, where possible, to move to open solutions. 5G will bring higher bandwidths, lower latencies, new radio technologies and a new wireless core. RAN disaggregation enabled by cloud RANs and open interfaces gives carriers the opportunity to benefit from […]

5G is rolling out faster than previous wireless generations and will have a much bigger impact on telecoms infrastructure and the supply chain. As mentioned in my previous post, 5G introduces a new radio specification (5G NR), a next generation wireless core network (NGC) and a modular RAN architecture that directly supports disaggregation and open solutions. […]

Behind the headline grabbing transition from 4G to 5G wireless networks there is a significant shift in the radio access network (RAN) from a centralised architecture to a virtualized/cloud (vRAN) architecture. This shift in architecture enables the opening up of the RAN and associated infrastructure solutions, including xHaul networks and edge computing, through public and […]

Over the past seven years the optical transport industry has made huge strides in increasing the capacity of a single fiber using the C-band. The combination of higher order modulation, flex grid channel spacing, higher symbol rates and super channels has increased the spectral efficiency to deliver 32 Tbit/s per single fiber using the standard […]

The volume of user traffic on carrier networks is growing at between 20% and 40% per year and if this trend continues as expected then optical transport networks will become overstretched without a significant increase in capacity beyond that currently planned by operators. The solution to this problem is likely to include a mix of […]

Edge computing, artificial intelligence, machine learning and security are all applications that are important for cloud and networking service providers and can benefit from domain-specific accelerators. Domain-specific accelerators are silicon-on-chip (SoC) devices that are optimized to deliver cost-effective acceleration of specific applications and networking functions. The Open Domain-Specific Accelerator (ODSA) Workgroup is an industry initiative […]

The first 400G data center switches have been announced as the Broadcom 12.8Tbit/s and 8Tbit/s Tomahawk 3 switch chips start mass production. Tomahawk 3 switch chips are used in the Arista 7060X4 Series and in new systems from Celestica, Delta Networks, Edgecore Networks and Quanta. Innovium is planning production shipments of TERALYNX switch chips before […]

Speakers at “The Evolution for Next-Generation Optical Networks” workshop session at ECOC 2018 in Rome delivered a compelling vision of next-generation optical networks and how they will support cloud and 5G services. The presentations from experts at operators, equipment suppliers and academic institutions based in the US, China and Europe were very well received by the audience […]