Over the last few years, corporations across multiple sectors have prioritised sustainability in their operations and set ambitious greenhouse gas reduction targets; many aligned to keep global warming within 1.5 degrees pre-industrial levels. To meet their targets, these corporations expect their technology vendors, and the entire ecosystem, to do their part as well, says Helen Xenos, senior director of portfolio marketing, Ciena.
In the telecom sector, communication service providers are faced with the challenge of meeting sustainability targets, while at the same time building out their networks to support our digital lifestyles and keep the world connected. Thankfully, telecom equipment vendors are rising to the challenge and innovating to develop products that are not only capable of delivering immense network capacity and speed, but that are also more cost effective and energy efficient.
Meeting the challenge of network sustainability
Not only must future generations of networking equipment be sustainable, but it also must be capable of managing unprecedented network performance to support the growing digital world. Service providers are facing an ongoing demand for increased bandwidth and capacity. This is driven by cloud applications used to support organisations’ ambitions to become Digital First, which will help them gain a competitive edge through data-driven insights. The cloud also enables organisations to offer remote and hybrid-working, allowing them to attract and retain the best talent. Advanced mobile services and applications using 3G and 4G also support communications for life and work on-the-go, making homes more connected than ever to support streaming services, gaming and working from home.
All of these developments and lifestyle changes mean service providers are seeing double digit growth year-on-year in capacity demand from their customers. With new bandwidth-hungry services and applications on the rise, this rate will not slow down, especially with new applications like the metaverse. In 2022, a global study conducted by Ciena found that 78% of business professionals would participate in virtual meetings that leveraged more immersive experiences, such as the metaverse, compared to the tools we currently have. But the bandwidth needed to support sustained periods of immersive virtual and augmented reality is greater than legacy networks are capable of providing.
Innovations in coherent optics: deployable, sustainable and powerful
Coherent optical transmission enables the transport of considerably more information through a legacy fibre optic cable using modulation of the amplitude and phase of light, as well as transmission across two polarisations. Using digital signal processing at both the transmitter and receiver, coherent optics also offers higher bit rates, greater degrees of flexibility, simpler photonic line systems and better overall optical performance.
Through coherent optical technology, it’s possible to deliver Terabits of information across a single fibre pair. Coherent optics also enables greater network flexibility and programmability by supporting different capacity-reach and channel spacing options. The result is scalability that allows the delivery of increased data throughput at a lower cost per bit. This scalability also promotes energy efficiency.
The right solution is easy to deploy without invasive overhauls. Through coherent technology innovation, it’s possible for providers to double their capacity for each wavelength deployed, without expanding their footprint. The new hardware is supported in the same chassis that are servicing end users today, with no changes required from a power perspective. This means that upgrades can be deployed quickly and can reduce the need for additional equipment. Through these upgrades, it will soon be possible to achieve up to 1.6Tb/s, single-carrier wavelengths for metro ROADM deployments, maximise network coverage for 800G connectivity, and enable fit-for-purpose 800G pluggables to meet diverse customer and application requirements, from 10 km to 1000 km.
Coherent optical technology has played a key role in advancing connectivity to enable the experiences that end-users today have come to rely on, while reducing space and power requirements. The ability to carry more capacity per wavelength dramatically reduces power per bit. Using this coherent technology, network providers have been able to achieve double the capacity within the same footprint and 50% less power consumption (per Gb/s) compared to the previous technology generation. With the development of coherent pluggables, the same capacity can be achieved as earlier generations of technology at one fifth the power and one tenth the space. Products implementing the latest generation of coherent technology results in fewer emissions in their transport, installation, running and cooling.
What to look for in a network infrastructure partner
Without doubt, future networks will rely on coherent optics to help service providers deliver the connectivity required to meet the growing demand for digital living. But not all coherent optical technology is the same. It is important to look for a telecom vendor that has the established heritage and a proven track record in working with service providers to scale their infrastructures to support bandwidth demands with the most energy efficient technology possible.
Crucially, they will be able to do this while keeping power and energy consumption in check, resulting in more data over optical fibre, at longer distances, and with less space and power. This can be seen in coherent optical technology, advancing from 40G to 100G, then 400G and now 800G whilst significantly reducing cost per bit, improving network performance, and driving energy efficiency.
To help corporations meet their sustainability targets, service providers need a network that can deliver a massive amount of bandwidth in an automated, flexible way not just through the core of the network or across the ocean, but closer than ever to the network edge and the end customer. Their networks need to have the right economic and power dynamics so that they can continue to provide innovative services and deliver the critical connectivity society needs, while being responsible to the environment.
High-bandwidth web-scale applications present both a challenge and an opportunity for network providers, but with the right networking systems, services, and software partner, they can access networking solutions that provide new levels of automation, intelligence, and scale. One telecom equipment vendor stands out from the crowd, having delivered an 85% reduction in Watts/Gbps and 20 times more capacity over fibre for its customers since 2010, why settle for less?.
The author is Helen Xenos, senior director of portfolio marketing, Ciena.
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