Huawei Launches the World First 32-Wavelength 320Gb/s-Capacity WDM-PON Prototype with Successful Demonstration at OFC2016

[Anaheim, the United States, March 31, 2016] Huawei, a leading global information and communications technology (ICT) solutions provider, today announced the successful demonstration of the world first 32-wavelength WDM-PON (wavelength division multiplexing passive optical network) prototype at 2016 Optical Fiber Communications Conference and Exposition (OFC 2016) in Anaheim, USA. The prototype increases the single-fiber capacity to 320 Gb/s, and provides exclusive wavelength channels to users with high security, high reliability, low latency and small timing jitter. It is well suited for wireless fronthaul and dedicated 10GE leased line services for enterprise users.

This prototype is developed based on Huawei’s next-generation large-capacity NG-OLT MA5800 platform, which greatly enhances the single-fiber access data capacity and offers higher application value. It can support 32 10GE wavelength channels in a single fiber, significantly breaking the limit of traditional WDM-PON. Moreover, the new 320-Gb/s WDM-PON system promises low cost per bit, compact form factor, and easy maintenance.

Traditional WDM-PON systems use fixed-wavelength optical modules, which lead to many different optical module models, causing a big inventory issue. Huawei’s new WDM-PON system introduces an innovative technology, which converges 32 models of traditional optical modules into a single model. This helps operators to significantly reduce operation and maintenance costs. Furthermore, Huawei’s new WDM-PON system uses an innovative and highly-integrated packaging technology to enable a single PON port to achieve up to 320-Gb/s capacity, successfully addressing the low port density and complex fiber connection problems of the traditional WDM-PON systems.

For emerging services such as LTE / 4.5G, 4K / 8K video streaming, cloud computing, and business leased line services, strict requirements on latency and timing jitter need to be met, which increases the system cost. In order to effectively satisfy different requirements of different services, the new WDM-PON OLT and ONU are capable of supporting these demanding services by simply loading different software packages, without changing the system hardware. This greatly enhances the overall efficiency of equipment management, operation and maintenance.

In 2015, Huawei has completed the industry’s first field trial on WDM-PON and XG-PON hybrid network. The WDM-PON system provided 10GE/GE leased line service to small and medium enterprises in an industrial park. In OFC 2016, Huawei announced the new 320-Gb/s WDM-PON prototype, and released two forward-looking technical papers. One paper regarding “256-Gb/s CPRI mobile fronthaul transmission” reports the demonstration of 256-Gb/s CPRI-equivalent data rate by using 10-GHz-bandwidth optical components, showing a major step forwards supporting future 4.5G and 5G mobile fronthaul via highly cost-effective optical access networks. The other paper regarding “Efficient mobile fronthaul for 128x128 MIMO” reports a new method to realize mobile fronthual for the massive MIMO scenario with both high bandwidth-efficiency and high cost-efficiency, contributing to the emerging field of fiber/wireless converged networks.

For a long time, Huawei has actively participated in ultra-broadband access technology researches and international standards developments. Several Huawei experts serve as Chairmen, board members and editors for ITU-T, IEEE, BBF and other global PON standards organizations, promoting the healthy development of ultra-broadband access in cooperation with partners. As a leader in the global fixed-access field, Huawei also offers the SingleFAN solution that enables the future-proof smooth evolution of access networks for our customers, bringing gigabit access capabilities over any media (fiber, copper, coaxial) through the unified platform in the exciting Gigaband era.