BT’s Open RAN trial: A mix of excitement and pragmatism

“We in telecoms, we don’t do complexity very well.” So says Neil McRae, BT’s managing director and chief architect.

He was talking about the trend of making network architectures open and in particular the Open Radio Access Network (Open RAN), an approach that BT is trialling.

“In networking, we are naturally sceptical because these networks are very important and every day become more important,” says McRae

Whether it is Open RAN or any other technology, it is key for BT to understand its aims and how it helps. “And most importantly, what it means for customers,” says McRae. “I would argue we don’t do enough of that in our industry.”

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Can a think tank tackle telecoms innovation deficit?

The Telecom Ecosystem Group (TEG) will publish shortly its final paper that concludes two years of industry discussion on ways to spur innovation in telecommunications.

The paper, entitled Addressing the Telecom Innovation Deficit, says telcos have lost much of their influence in shaping the technologies on which they depend.

Source: Telecom Ecosystem Group

“They have become ageing monocultures; disruptive innovators have left the industry and innovation is outsourced,” says the report.

The TEG has held three colloquiums and numerous discussion groups soliciting views from experienced individuals across the industry during the two years.

The latest paper names eight authors but many more contributed to the document and its recommendations.

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Building the data rate out of smaller baud rates

In the second article addressing the challenges of increasing the symbol rate of coherent optical transport systems, Professor Andrew Lord, BT’s head of optical network research, argues that the time is fast approaching to consider alternative approaches.

Coherent discourse 2

Coherent optical transport systems have advanced considerably in the last decade to cope with the relentless growth of internet traffic.

Professor Andrew Lord

One-hundred-gigabit wavelengths, long the networking standard, have been replaced by 400-gigabit ones while state-of-the-art networks now use 800 gigabits.

Increasing the data carried by a single wavelength requires advancing the coherent digital signal processor (DSP), electronics and optics.

It also requires faster symbol rates.

Moving from 32 to 64 to 96 gigabaud (GBd) has increased the capacity of coherent transceivers from 100 to 800 gigabits.

Last year, Acacia, now part of Cisco, announced the first 1-terabit-plus wavelength coherent modem that uses a 128GBd symbol rate.

Other vendors will also be detailing their terabit coherent designs, perhaps as soon as the OFC show, to be held in San Diego in March.

The industry consensus is that 240GBd systems will be possible towards the end of this decade although all admit that achieving this target is a huge challenge.

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Nokia's 4.8-terabit FP5 packet-processing chipset

Part 1: IP routing: Nokia's latest FP5 and router platforms 

Nokia has unveiled its latest packet-processing silicon that will be the mainstay of its IP router platforms for years to come.

The FP5 chipset is rated at 4.8 terabits-per-second (Tbps), a twelvefold improvement in Nokia’s packet-processing silicon performance in a decade. (See chart.)

Source: Nokia, Gazettabyte

Communications service provider (CSP) BT says Nokia’s 7750 router platforms equipped with the FP5 chipset will deliver every use case it needs for its Multi Service Edge; from core routing, MPLS-VPN, broadband network gateways (BNG), to mobile backhaul and Ethernet.

The FP5 announcement comes four years after Nokia unveiled its existing flagship router chipset, the FP4. The FP4 was announced as a 2.4Tbps chipset but Nokia upgraded its packet-processing rating to 3Tbps.

Heidi Adams

“We announced what we knew but then, through subsequent development and testing, the performance ended up at 3Tbps,” says Heidi Adams, head of IP and optical networks marketing at Nokia.

The FP5 may also exceed its initial 4.8Tbps rating.

Nokia will use the FP5 to upgrade its existing platforms and power new router products; it will not license the chipset nor will it offer it for use in open router platforms.

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Making optical networking feel like cycling downhill

BT’s chief architect, Neil McRae, is a fervent believer in the internet, a technology built on the continual progress of optical networking. He discussed both topics during his invited talk at the recent OFC 2021 virtual conference and exhibition.

Neil McRae’s advocacy of the internet as an educational tool for individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds stems from his childhood experiences.

Neil McRae

“When I was a kid, I lived in a deprived area and the only thing that I could do was go to the library,” says McRae, chief architect and managing director for architecture and technology strategy at BT.

His first thought on discovering the internet was just how much there was to read.

“If I’m honest, everything I’ve learnt in technology has been pretty much self-taught,” says McRae.

This is why he so values the internet. It has given him a career where he has travelled widely and worked with talented and creative people.

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BT takes a deep dive into hollow-core fibre

BT has been experimenting with hollow-core fibre to understand how it could benefit its network. The results are promising.

Professor Andrew Lord“We are looking at all the use cases and it is a bit early to say which one is the killer one but they are all interesting,” says Professor Andrew Lord, BT’s head of optical network research.

“There are so many parameters [of hollow-core fibre] and all seem to be slightly or vastly better than single-mode fibre,” says Neil Parkin, optical networks research manager at BT.

The service provider is working with hollow-core fibre start-up, Lumenisity, and 5G software networking specialist, Mavenir.

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Sustainability for telecoms is a journey without end

ADVA has set itself ambitious carbon emission reduction targets. The policy serves its long-term business interests, it says, as doing nothing will be very costly.

ADVA became, in 2019, only the fourth company in Germany to achieve approval for its emissions target to limit global warming to 2oC above pre-industrial temperatures.

Klaus GrobeLast year ADVA adopted more stringent emissions targets to limit global warming to 1.5oC, with the Science-Based Targets initiative (SBTi) organisation approving its programme.

Trimming half a degree centigrade may sound minor but the resulting targets become far more challenging, says Klaus Grobe, director, sustainability at ADVA.

“Since there are massive non-linear physical processes in the background, that leads to massively more aggressive reduction targets,” he says.

If ADVA’s 2019 targets required a 20 per cent reduction in emissions from its car fleet and electricity needs, now they are to be reduced to a third by 2032.

“It’s a huge step,” says Grobe.

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