Italian wholesale provider Open Fiber has completed the first tests of its 200G optical transport network (OTN) backbone, dubbed ‘Zion’.
Trials were carried out on the route between Rome and Florence, using transmission technologies supplied by Huawei, whilst the passive optical fibre infrastructure was provided by Terna. In a press release from the firm, Open Fiber explained that its use of the Chinese vendor’s Flex Grid technology enables it to aggregate multiple optical channels simultaneously on a single optical fibre and therefore manage more customers and services. Stefano Paggi, one of Open Fiber’s network and operations directors, was quoted as saying: ‘We get to 200 Giga thanks to a new ability to modulate the signal and correct errors, as well as thanks to the new hardware used, which is the most advanced on the market in digital/optical components.’ The provider adds that the network guarantees high capacity, low latency and high resilience and, as such, will be fundamental in supporting future technologies such as 5G and IoT.