ECOC is the largest conference and exhibition on optical communications in Europe and ON2020 is an IEEE Industry Connections Activity that provides a forum for operators and optical solution vendors to share visions and develop technology roadmaps and evolution scenarios to ensure the right solutions are available.
This first session consisted of a series of presentations from NGOF (the Next Generation Optical network Forum). NGOF was formed in China towards the end of 2017 to drive the optical innovation needed for the 5G and cloud era. NGOF is growing rapidly and now has more than 50 member companies, up from 26 in September 2018, including leading carriers, equipment suppliers, test instrument vendors and semiconductor vendors. These companies are both Chinese and international. Changliang Zhang, representing the NGOF core team, explained that they had formed five technology working groups covering 5G transport, optical modules for metro applications, cloud and private line bearing, high-capacity WDM technology and submarine transmission.
5G is seen as a key technology driver requiring a mix of technologies to support 5G front haul and 5G back haul connections. Next generation OTN and WDM are required to support both 5G transport and metro and long-distance transport infrastructure. These are the top priority topics in NGOF together with cloud and private line bearing technology. NGOF provides a platform for members to exchange ideas, discuss requirements and trigger innovations. Changliang Zhang emphasized that the NGOF is open to all members with a common mission and welcomes potential cooperation with other organizations.
Anxu Zhang from China Telecom was representing the NGOF High Capacity WDM Transmission System working group. Anxu Zhang started his presentation with a review of the emerging services that bring challenges, including high bandwidth, low latency and network cloudification, to the optical network and then went on to discuss many of the solutions being proposed and implemented. Developments already happening include 200G long haul, 400G DCI, a shift towards all optical networks using ROADM mesh connections and solutions to bring OTN and WDM to the edge.
Anxu Zhang presented recent field trials of 200G WDM, reaching 1,142km using 16QAM modulation and 50GHz channel spacing and 2,174km using QPSK and 75GHz channel spacing. He also presented all optical, ROADM-based, solutions for example backbone and metro network applications in China. The NGOF High Capacity WDM Transmission System working group is developing several solutions to extend long haul spectrum bandwidth. These include extending the 4THz C band to 6THz (C++ band) and using C+L bands. Anxu Zhang concluded with a look at the solutions for low cost WDM in metro applications that include both coherent and direct detect options. The coherent solutions could use CFP2-DCO, OSFP or QSFP-DD modules or a specially developed alternative.
The workshop session concluded with a presentations from He Zhang from China Unicom on OTN for cloud and private line bearing and a presentation from Lu Liu from the China Academy of Information and Communication Technology on optical modules. He Zhang explained that the requirements for private line networks are changing significantly with cloudification and demands for high bandwidth, low latency and rapid provisioning in many applications including hospital, government and finance networks. NGOF has developed a five-star specification for premium private lines that will help ensure solutions meet these needs. The best solution for premium private line is seen as being based on a combination of SDH, OTN and packet technologies. The next-gen OTN standard is also being discussed in NGOF, which will introduce smaller granularities for switching compared with current OTN technology. The NGOF expects this new OTN standard to provide a more flexible business-oriented container to better address the enterprise market.
This session provided a great overview of the work being done within NGOF and an insight into some recent developments in China. All the presenters emphasised the importance of these developments and the benefits they can bring within China and more widely through cooperation with other organisations and companies.
