MTN and Huawei Announce Completion of Transport SDN and 2.4T WDM System Field Trial in South Africa

Mobilk - Huawei and MTN, Africas largest telecommunications operator, have announced the successful live trial of a Transport Software-Defined Networking (SDN) and 2.4Tbit/s wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) system. This trial is currently the fastest and most intelligent optical network to date in the industry, setting the standard for the evolution of optical transport.

The ultra-fast single-channel 2.4 Tbit/s field trial took place on MTN’s national fibre backbone network in South Africa. In the first scenario, 2.4 Tbit/s with 16QAM (Quadrature Amplitude Modulation) was achieved over a transmission distance exceeding 300 km. In the second scenario, 2 Tbit/s with QPSK was achieved over a transmission distance of 1031 km. The success of this trial demonstrates the advanced optical transport system with bandwidth capacities far beyond the existing 100G technology.

In addition to the large system capacity, the "world’s first" transport SDN new features were also tested. Huawei Transport SDN solutions, using physical network modeling and resource abstraction, have realized transmission pipe virtualization. These advances allow traditional communication technology networks to be "IT-like". This trial successfully demonstrated SDN features such as Bandwidth on Demand (BoD), Virtual Transport Service (VTS) and Automatic O&M functions.

Mr. Navi Naidoo, Group Technology Officer, MTN, said: "With this successful field trial, we have demonstrated our commitment to digital innovation. MTN continues to invest in future-proof transport networks to realize world class technologies, not only to our existing markets, but to extend our technology offerings globally. We believe that networks such as cloud computing, streaming media and mobile broadband must be scalable, intelligent and flexible. To this end, Huaweis next generation optical evolution concept SDN-based flex optical network properly fits our requirements."

Mr. Zha Jun, President of Huaweis Fixed Network Business Unit, said: "Huawei will maintain cooperation and joint innovation with MTN, and continue to promote the commercialization process of SDN and ultra-high speed optical transmission technology, in order to jointly meet the challenges of a digital future. "