Telecom Lead Asia: Huawei has unveiled its all-optical switching network architecture supporting any network topology.
The Chinese telecom equipment maker demonstrated all-optical transmission and switching at the OFC/NFOEC 2013 event using prototypes based on this new architecture and technology.
Huawei says all-optical switching network offers cost-effective and energy-efficient transport based on all-optical switching, by eliminating the need for Optical-Electrical-Optical (OEO) conversion or electrical switching.
In addition, Huawei demonstrated real-time 100G optical burst transceiving for the first time in the industry.
Huawei is trying to strengthen its presence in broadband market. According ABI Research, in 2012, fiber-optic broadband service revenue grew 24 percent, while DSL and cable broadband grew 2 percent and 6 percent respectively. Fiber-optic broadband is expected to grow stronger than other platforms throughout the forecast period. In 2018, FTTH revenue should reach $81.6 billion, almost one-third of global broadband service revenue.
Ovum says the global optical components (OC) market posted revenues of $6.3 billion in 2012, down 3 percent from 2011 due to capacity constraints caused by the Thai floods and soft demand from macroeconomic uncertainty.
Optical Components vendors are looking forward to growth in 2013 after a challenging 2012 and a weak 1Q13 outlook. The 2012 revenue contraction obscured a transition; the optical communications market moved to new high-speed transmission in 2012.
Daryl Inniss, practice leader Components Telecoms at Ovum, said: “Vendors have good reason to be cautiously optimistic about 2013 as Ovum believes demand for 100G transmission gear will enter mainstream. Multiple component vendors introduced products like coherent 100G DWDM transponders in anticipation.”
Recently, Huawei launched the industry’s first intelligent optical splitter at the FTTH Council Europe in London. With this new optical splitter, operators can realize automatic identification and generation of the optical distribution network (ODN) topology for the fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) network and precise fault diagnosis in optical splitter branches. Compared with the traditional optical splitters for passive optical networks (PON), this new optical splitter is more advanced in technology and marks another major breakthrough in the domain of intelligent ODN.
