Telefónica taps Huawei for 40Gbit/s transmission network

Telefónica opted for the 40Gbit/s network in order to improve the reliability of its service

Telecoms network provider Huawei has partnered with Telefónica to roll out the Spanish telco's first worldwide 40Gbit/s transmission network.

The system uses wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) optical rings to generate high-bandwidth and intelligent transmission to cope with the huge increase in data traffic the company has seen in recent times.

WDM is the process of using different wavelengths of light to carry multiple signals down a single piece of fibre-optic cable, thereby increasing the effective bandwidth of the system.

Back in August, Huawei won the contract to build a similar 40Gbit/s network for China Telecom to help meet its growing customer base and the increased demand for a wide variety of services.

Telefónica opted for the 40Gbit/s network in order to improve the reliability of its service, while cutting costs by upping its provisioning using technologies such as Huawei's Reconfigurable Optical Add-drop Multiplexer provisioning tool, and the ready-to-activate advanced network Control and Management Planes based on Generalised Multi-protocol Label Switching.

"It is a great honour for us to provide the operator with its first 40Gbit/s optical structures providing it with flexible and reliable intelligent transmission solutions," said Christian Chua, president of Huawei's transport network product line.

This is not the first 40Gbit/s network for Europe, as Virgin Media deployed Nortel's platform back in May. But it does highlight the growing demand by customers for ever greater bandwidth and availability.

With this in mind, Huawei has also deployed the industry's longest 40Gbit/s commercial trunk with no electric regeneration, and has announced the successful development of a 100Gbit/s WDM prototype.