Belgacom Builds Reconfigurable Optical Backbone with Siemens

Belgacom International Carrier Services is working with Siemens Communications to build a flexible optical backbone linking 16 of its European telecommunications nodes and enable Belgacom ICS to offer its customers transmission capacity up to n x 40 Gbps wavelengths.



Belgacom's PEN4FUTURE project relies on Siemens' Surpass hiT 7500 platform, an optical transport platform for regional and long-haul haul applications. The network uses ROADM technology (Reconfigurable Optical Add & Drop Multiplexer), enabling the carrier to significantly lower operational and investment costs compared with the previous DWDM generation technology. Moreover, the plug & play and fully tunable ultra-long haul transponders dramatically reduce the time to deploy.



Belgacom ICS's new optical backbone will link 16 network nodes in 7 European countries: Belgium, France, United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, and at a later stage Italy. The deployment is phased from May to August 2006.

http://www.siemens.com