100 gigabit fiber optic wavelengths were state of the art not long ago, but 800G is ready in 2020. China Mobile tested Huawei's 800G optical transport unit between two data centers 80 kilometers apart. Verizon used Ciena and Juniper 800G equipment in its test. Huawei, Ciena, and Infinera are confident they will ship 800G production units in 2020.
18 months ago, I was one of the first to report in English that Huawei was producing its own high-quality optical units. At that time, they were still purchasing lasers for the most advanced units. Huawei has now caught up in optics. The company matches the best in 5G, AI, and network processing chip design and is very close in the very important radio frequency parts for 5G.
Donald Trump wants to destroy "Made in China 2025" but is failing miserably. It was based on a false belief that Chinese companies needed U.S. parts to make advanced equipment. That may have been true 15 years ago, but today China has the capability to match the U.S. in almost any field. There is no reason someone born in San Francisco will be smarter than someone born in Shanghai. America has brilliant engineers, a large market, and a system that drove innovation. Today, so does China.
A friend who teaches advanced engineering at Stanford tells me he considers Tsinghua a peer. Grudgingly, he might say the same about Berkeley and a few others, but Stanford and MIT are clearly the world leaders.
Huawei in particular has redoubled its efforts to become self-sufficient and is already producing high end smartphones with no American parts. The Huawei Mobile System is now shipping in Europe and Asia, designed to be a complete alternative to Google. The app stores are serving hundreds of millions. Goggle is almost desperately beseeching DC to sell Google software to Huawei; it will soon be too late to regain the market.
Last year, I wrote, "The unbelievably high cost of the war against Huawei." American companies not merely are losing $10 billion in sales to Huawei. The Chinese have no choice but to design their own alternatives. The government is doing whatever it takes to catch up, including investing $100 billion in chip-making and pharmaceuticals. HiSilicon is now selling chips beyond Huawei. As china builds skills it will take more and more of the high tech market from the U.S.
Whatever the purpose of the war on Huawei and China, it was a mistake because the U.S. cannot win.
China Mobile Zhejiang and Huawei Complete 800G Optical Transport Trial on Live Networks
[Shenzhen, China, February 28, 2020] China Mobile (Zhejiang) and Huawei completed the first live trial of a 800G ultra-high-speed optical transport network, marking a step closer to the commercialization of the 800G optical transport network solution. This will support the development of advanced services such as 5G, big data, and cloud computing.
As a leading provincial operator in China, China Mobile (Zhejiang) provides high-quality mobile and fixed communication services for tens of millions of users. Network traffic will continue to increase sharply in the next five years as new technologies and services such as 5G, cloud computing, big data, and AR/VR approach maturity. Therefore, the construction of transmission infrastructures in addition to the evolution of equipment and technology must make strides to keep up with the wave of the digital flood.
Huawei’s 800G ultra-high-speed optical transport solution strives to meet China Mobile (Zhejiang)'s large-capacity transmission requirements. The solution uses Huawei’s 800G tunable ultra-high-speed optical module, which supports bandwidth and wavelength spacing adjustment and enables up to 48 Tbit/s per-fiber capacity, which is 6 times the capacity of traditional 100G networks and can support 1 million concurrent 4K users. The solution is mature and has both leading performance and capacity. Furthermore, Huawei has end-to-end delivery capability and supply chain assurance, and is in a leading position in performance, capacity, and solution maturity. Two data centers at a distance of 80 km were used in this trial. The trial successfully confirmed that the 800G solution performed and functioned as expected, indicating its upcoming commercial release.
As a leading telecommunications operator, China Mobile (Zhejiang) is highly interested in large-capacity transport technologies, including 800G optical transport technology. Huawei's 800G high-speed transport technology greatly improves the transport efficiency of optical networks. Therefore, China Mobile (Zhejiang) plans to strengthen its cooperation with Huawei to accelerate the application of innovative technologies, build more efficient optical networks, and provide high-quality connection services to cope with explosive traffic growth.
Simon Lu, President of Huawei's Transmission Network Domain, said, "We are delighted to have completed the first operator-based 800G trial with China Mobile (Zhejiang). This is a milestone in the global commercial use of Huawei's 800G solution. Huawei will continue investing in R&D to provide high-quality, reliable, and evolvable solutions while helping China Mobile (Zhejiang) achieve greater business success."
Verizon transports 800 Gbps of data across a single wavelength on fiber
Verizon continues technology innovation to prepare for an explosion in data generation from enterprise and consumer 5G applications
DALLAS, TX – Verizon, along with Ciena and Juniper Networks, have recently completed a test in Verizon’s live fiber network to move 800 Gbps of data on a single wavelength. 5G promises blazing fast gigabit speeds, super low single-digit millisecond latency, and huge scalability. It will be able to connect billions of devices and moving terabytes of data from new and exciting, never-before-seen use cases including video streaming, virtual reality, cloud computing, and machine learning and artificial intelligence. To move that much data, Verizon engineers are advancing the connecting layer of fiber as well.
“In the past, we needed to combine multiple wavelengths to achieve 800 Gbps capacity,” said Kevin N. Smith, Vice President of Technology and Planning for Verizon. “Now, with the new optics configuration from Ciena and Juniper Networks on our fiber network, we are advancing our connecting layer of fiber to prepare for the explosion of data we know will come along with 5G’s transformational impact on industries and consumers. And being the only provider in the industry with that capacity on a single wavelength allows us to deliver the service at a much lower cost per bit.”
Trial details
This successful trial on Verizon’s live fiber network showed equipment interoperability from two different suppliers and the capability to quadruple the typical capacity carried on a wavelength. The test traffic was transmitted between two Juniper Networks QFX 5220 packet platforms across two Ciena 6500 platforms powered by WaveLogic 5 Extreme (WL5e) coherent optics.
The use of this new coherent optics and equipment from Ciena and Juniper Networks demonstrate the evolution to a more software-driven and automated network with tunable capacity from 200Gbps to 800Gbps per wavelength, allowing Verizon to maximize efficiencies with the ability to optimize capacity for any distance and adjust to unpredictable traffic demands dynamically to meet customer needs.
“800G is possible today with our WaveLogic 5 Extreme technology and this live Network trial is remarkable because it shows the progression of capacity and efficiencies,” said Scott McFeely, Senior Vice President of Global Products and Services for Ciena. “Programmable 200Gbps-800Gbps transmission will allow Verizon to effectively respond to fluctuating user demands by creating a more software-driven, programmable and highly scalable network.”
“As network traffic continues to grow sharply, driven by video and other new 5G uses cases, it’s imperative for communications service providers and infrastructure vendors to work closely together for rapid innovation. New 400GbE packet routers and 800G coherent optical systems help drive down the cost per bit with improved scale and density. We’re excited to have played a role in this successful trial and look forward to help deliver new, high-bandwidth services to end-users.” - Sally Bament, Vice President, Cloud & Service Provider Marketing, Juniper Networks
Verizon will begin deploying this new optical configuration in the fiber network in the second half of 2020.