France Telecom-Orange and Alcatel-Lucent appear to have got a head start in the race to 400Gbps, after deploying what is said to be the world’s first live optical 400Gbps, per wavelength. The optical link runs between Paris and Lyon, with a reported capacity of four times higher than the maximum bandwidth presently available. [read more]
China Mobile has implemented a 4G Time-Division Long-Term Evolution (TD-LTE) network trial in two cities in the province of Zhejiang, China. According to reports, Hangzhou, the largest city in the province, will have a network of 2,400 base stations covering 500 square kilometres, serving nearly five million people. The second trial is in Wenzhou, further south of Hangzhou, with TD-LTE expected to enhance the internet speed of existing 3G network. [read more]
Japanese carrier KDDI has announced that it will upgrade the Miyazaki-Okinawa Cable network in Japan to offer 100Gbps services. Infinera’s DTN-X platform is being used for the upgrade on the system that links the Japan Information Highway submarine cable system, stretching 10,300km. [read more]
SK Broadband has partnered with Alcatel-Lucent to build a packet transport network to support Ethernet services for its enterprise customers. The packet transport network (PTN) solution is designed to meet the high-bandwidth needs of current and future business applications and will complement SK’s existing TDM transport network. DongBum Shin, head of network planning at SK Broadband, said he expects the PTN to enable the company to prepare for its mid- to long-term network migration to IP. [read more]
Huawei has launched what is claimed to be the telecoms industry’s first fibre-to-the-door (FTTD) solution. The solution reuses existing twisted pairs of coaxial cables to provide broadband speeds of between 100Mbps to 1,000Mbps. Huawei claims FTTD overcomes the traditional difficulties of FTTH and FTTB including drop fibre installation, slow deployment and large investments. [read more]
Telefónica is claiming to be the first network operator to demonstrate the seamless transfer of telephone multivendor calls from an LTE network to a 3G network. The carrier tested the Single Radio Voice Call Continuity (SRVCC) technology in a lab environment that accurately simulates a real mobile network. [read more]
Sidera Networks has upgraded the 10Gbs backbone connections of US cable provider MetroCast to 100Gbs. MetroCast’s connections between Rochester, NY and Boston, MA, as well as Ashburn, VA and Leonardtown, MD have been upgraded to 100Gbps. [read more]
Communications charity
Télécoms Sans Frontières (TSF) has installed an internet satellite connection in the Malian city of Timbuktu. The city had been under the control of Islamic extremists for 10 months before it was liberated by French and Malian forces at the end of January.
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African telco K-NET has announced the successful transition of its satellite-based services to a new higher powered digital communications satellite. The SES operated Astra 2F, launched in September 2012, provides the new connection to K-NET’s teleport, located in Accra, Ghana. It replaces the Astra 2B satellite launched in 2000. [read more]
The France Telecom-backed Africa Coast Europe (ACE) submarine cable has reportedly landed in Dakar, Senegal. Cheikh Bamba Dièye, Senegal’s telecoms minister, said that the link would provide much-needed capacity to support rising voice and data demand, as well as supporting e-government, e-education and local content providers, according to Agence Ecofin. [read more]
