[Hefei, China, December 20, 2017] China Telecom has announced the commercial implementation of its ROADM backbone network on the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River. This network covers the territories of Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Shanghai, Hubei, Anhui, and Jiangxi. Huawei, the exclusive network solution provider, completed the network in five months. The network will initially carry more than 300, 100G services.

The deployment ceremony of China Telecom's ROADM intelligent optical network on the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River

As the era of 5G, the Internet of Things (IoT), and cloud approaches, operator networks not only need larger capacity, but also require lower latency, more flexible provisioning and grooming, and more robust survival capabilities. For the first time in China, the network uses advanced optical-layer dynamic routing technology, as well as a colorless, directionless, and contentionless tunable optical add/drop switching nodes with many degrees and flexible grid functions. Additionally, network sites in this area are full-mesh interconnected. In this way, one-hop connection and minimum-latency transmission of wavelength-level services are implemented.

As an exemplary backbone network, it will be replicated in other parts of the country in the future. The network will not only be able to carry the data services of China Telecom, but also help build China Telecom's core competitiveness in high-quality enterprise, finance, and data center private line services. In addition, through this project, China Telecom established the enterprise standard of ROADM and accumulated valuable experience in project management.

Wei Leping, Deputy Director of the Science and Technology Committee of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, and Director of the Science and Technology Committee of China Telecom, said,

"The dynamic interconnection of the first ROADM backbone network in China initializes the strategic upgrade from electrical nodes to all-optical nodes and from point-to-point links to optical-layer mesh networking. This not only breaks the electrical bottlenecks of network node capacities, but also symbolizes the transition from all-optical network 1.0 (all-optical fiber networks) to the new era of all-optical network 2.0 (all-optical automatic grooming).

“This is also a key step in the evolution towards China Telecom's simple, agile, open, and intensive CTNet2025 network reconstruction mission. It not only brings transformation at all layers of the transport network, but also promotes prosperity in related industries," continued Wei Leping.

Richard Jin, President of Huawei Transmission Network Product Line, said,

"China Telecom is leading the industry to explore future network traffic growth. Huawei is honored to have the opportunity to work with China Telecom in this process. The deployment of this intelligent all-optical network along the Yangtze River opens a new era for the global optical network industry. Huawei will continue to explore the backbone network architecture of the future with China Telecom. We will also help China Telecom handle explosive traffic growth, build intelligent networks, and accelerate their digital transformation."