Etisalat and Huawei in first compact OXC trial

Applications and Research

Service provider Etisalat has worked with Huawei to complete the first trial of compact all-optical cross-connect (OXC) for the transport industry.

The OXC in question – the Huawei OptiXtrans OSN 9800 P32C – is a large-capacity OXC device that can be used in the backbone or aggregation layer. Huawei reckons it meets the requirements for fast grooming of large-granularity services and separated east-west deployment in a transport network. According to the partners the tested product achieved three major innovation breakthroughs:

• First, the industry’s largest capacity. Liquid Crystal on Silicon (LCoS) technology is used to enable the optical switching capacity to Pbits/s level and achieve the industry’s highest compact 16-degree grooming capability. The device integration is nine times that of the traditional ROADM solution, which can save 80% of the room space
• Second, the zero-fibre optic connection. Based on the optical backplane technology used, the OXC product can print more than 1,000 optical fibres on an A4 size backplane, shortening the service provisioning time from 30 minutes to three minutes and supporting fully automating fibre scheduling
• Third, optical layer visualisation and minute-level troubleshooting. The digital optical layer adopts the Huawei-developed optical label technology to support end-to-end visibility of wavelength-level network status. The optical network troubleshooting time is shortened from hours to minutes to achieve efficient optical-layer operation and maintenance.

“This joint innovation project with Huawei is a result of Etisalat’s focus on its vision and strategy of ‘Driving the digital future to empower societies’. This has motivated us to continuously invest to provide superior network services for our customers,” observed Esmaeel Al Hammadi, senior vice president, network development at Etisalat. “This new solution with Huawei will enhance development of the infrastructure and simplify the network, reducing service provisioning time, and improving efficiency in operations and maintenance to provide an optimal network experience for customers.”

“We enjoyed working with Etisalat to complete the joint trial of compact OXC,” added Simon Lu, president of Huawei Transmission Network. “This is an innovative solution that will redefine and simplify the methodology to develop the optical layer in the transport industry. Huawei will continue to carry out technological innovation and research to provide Etisalat with intelligent, simplified, and ultra-broadband all-optical transmission ON2.0 solutions, helping Etisalat to achieve business success.”

For more information, visit www.huawei.com