MTN and Huawei Complete Transport SDN and WDM System Field Trial in South Africa
MTN and Huawei have announced the successful live trial of a Transport Software-Defined Networking (SDN) and 2.4Tbit/s Wavelength-Division Multiplexing (WDM) system to create the fastest and most intelligent optical network to date in the industry, setting the standard for the evolution of optical transport.
The trial took place on the continent’s largest telecommunications operator’s national fibre backbone network in South Africa, with the first result achieving a transmission distance in excess of 300 kilometres.
With QPSK in the second scenario, the transmission distance was 1,031 km, demonstrating that advanced optical transport systems can reach bandwidth capacities beyond the existing 100G technology.
In addition to the large system capacity, the "world’s first" transport SDN’ new features were also tested.
Huawei Transport SDN solutions, using physical network modeling and resource abstraction, have realised transmission pipe virtualization, allowing traditional communication technology networks to be "IT-like". This trial successfully demonstrated SDN features such as Bandwidth on Demand (BoD), Virtual Transport Service (VTS) and Automatic O&M functions.
Mr.Navi Naidoo, Group Technology Officer at MTN, said: "With this successful field trial, we have demonstrated our commitment to digital innovation.
“MTN continues to invest in future-proof transport networks to realise world class technologies, not only to our existing markets, but to extend our technology offerings globally.
“We believe that networks such as cloud computing, streaming media and mobile broadband must be scalable, intelligent and flexible. To this end, Huawei's next generation optical evolution concept, 'SDN-based flex optical network', properly fits our requirements."
Mr. Zha Jun, President of Huawei's Fixed Network Business Unit, added: "Huawei will maintain cooperation and joint innovation with MTN, and continue to promote the commercialisation process of SDN and ultra-high speed optical transmission technology, in order to jointly meet the challenges of a digital future."
