Huawei has announced the deployment of its automatically switched optical network (ASON) solution on SK Telecom’s 200 Gbit/s network in Korea to address growing demand for ultra-fast mobile broadband access. Huawei noted that this, the first deployment of its ASON solution on a commercial 200 Gbit/s network, is designed to significantly increase data capacity and transmission speeds to enable SK Telecom to both expand its high-bandwidth mobile services and accommodate future 5G network traffic in South Korea.
The largest mobile operator in South Korea serving around 29 million mobile subscribers, SK Telecom has deployed LTE and LTE Advanced technology to increase network speeds and plans to start 5G testing before the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, as well as to commercially trial mobile 3D imaging, UHD video and other emerging technologies. To prepare for the deployment of 5G, SK Telecom is planning to build a 5G oriented high-speed backbone network.
Huawei’s OTN+ASON solution will constitute a key element of this new high-speed backbone network. The solution, which supports 200 Gbit/s per wavelength, will increase network bandwidth and is designed to enable the evolution to ultra-high-speed, 1 Tbit/s transmission while also meeting SK Telecom’s requirements in terms of high capacity, efficient O&M and security.
Dependent on the transmission distance involved, the Huawei solution will allow SK Telecom to select 16QAM, 8QAM or QPSK modulation technology, which will help the operator adapt to different transmission scenarios as well as support future service requirements using Huawei programmable and universal boards. In addition, the OTN platform can be integrated with multiple 2G, 3G and 4G legacy backhaul networks that SK Telecom operates to help simplify its infrastructure and improve O&M efficiency. The Huawei 200 Gbit/s backbone network also features the ASON architecture and is fully meshed, which means it adapt to accommodate multiple fibre cuts for enhanced network reliability and security. Huawei noted that next-generation ASON employs unicast ASON to support a full range of video services.
