California Research and Education Network upgrades to 400G

The California Research and Education Network (CalREN) is now able to provide high-capacity services, from 100G to 400G and beyond, on its coastal path between Los Angeles and Sunnyvale. The 460-mile upgraded optical route includes nodes in Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, and Soledad.

The upgrades leverages flex-grid spectrum Reconfigurable Optical Add-Drop Multiplexers (ROADMs). Flex grid optimizes the amount of spectrum used per wavelength, enabling more data capacity to be provisioned over fiber spans.

CalREN, which is operated by CENIC, serves the vast majority of K-20 students, educators, researchers, and individuals at other vital public-serving institutions. CalREN operates over 8,000 miles of fiber optic cable and serves more than 20 million users.

In 2019, CENIC upgraded the southern path of its network between Los Angeles and Riverside, including nodes in Tustin, Oceanside, San Diego, Escondido, and Sun City. Work will start in the fall on upgrades to the final inland path, which completes the network ring from Sunnyvale back to Los Angeles and includes nodes in Oakland, Sacramento, Fergus, Fresno, and Bakersfield.

“Next-generation infrastructure ensures CENIC can easily meet today’s networking demands while remaining flexible to meet the needs of tomorrow,” said CENIC President and CEO Louis Fox. “These upgrades provide CENIC’s members a more robust and efficient network on which to conduct data-intensive research, support teaching and learning, provide cutting-edge medical care, and enhance community engagement.”

CENIC is also supporting the Pacific Research Platform (PRP), a partnership of more than 50 institutions, led by researchers at UC San Diego and UC Berkeley, with support from the National Science Foundation. PRP builds on the optical backbone of Pacific Wave, a project of CENIC and Pacific Northwest Gigapop, to create a high-speed freeway for large scientific data sets by connecting campus networks and supercomputing centers on a regional scale, with Science DMZs at each site.

Developed by the US Department of Energy’s Energy Science Network (ESnet) engineers, the Science DMZ model addresses common network performance bottlenecks encountered at research institutions by creating an environment that is tailored to the needs of high-performance science applications, including high-volume bulk data transfer, remote experiment control, and data visualization. PRP’s design supports university researcher data analysis for projects such as the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the NSF’s South Pole Neutrino Detector (IceCube), and the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO).

CENIC deploys first 400G circuit in Los Angeles

Wednesday, December 18, 2019  400G, CENIC  

CENIC, the organization that provides global connectivity for education and research institutions in California, has deployed a 400 Gbps single-carrier optical circuit between Los Angeles and Riverside. This marks one of the first-ever 400G superchannels to be deployed by a US regional research and education network. Construction included upgrading nodes in Los Angeles, Tustin, Oceanside, San Diego (home to the San Diego Supercomputer Center), Escondido, Sun City, and Riverside to 400G capabilities.

CENIC upgraded network infrastructure to flex spectrum Reconfigurable Optical Add-Drop Multiplexers (ROADMs) and the NCS 1004 transponder platform. CENIC used Cisco-loaned equipment for the validation in production and is now implementing the permanent infrastructure.

“This is an important networking milestone for CENIC,” said President and CEO Louis Fox. “With increasing demands for 100G services among our community, from research scientists working with big data sets to educators leveraging technology to transform the classroom, network capacity should not limit the work or ambitions of our researchers, teachers, or students.”

CENIC plans to expand its 400G provisioning capabilities along its coastal fiber path from Los Angeles to Sunnyvale by mid-2020.

CENIC’s network traffic continues to grow by roughly 60% each year. Between May 2018 and May 2019, the network moved an exabyte of data.

http://www.cenic.org

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Huawei expects production of its Kirin 5G silicon to end by Sept 15

Huawei has confirmed that the production of its 5G Kirin chipset by TSMC will end in the coming weeks. Speaking at an industry event in Shenzhen, Yu Chengdong, CEO of Huawei’s Consumer Business Unit, said: “Unfortunately, in the second round of U.S. sanctions, our chip producers only accepted orders until May 15. Production will close on Sept. 15,” Yu said at a conference August 7th. “This year may be the last generation of Huawei Kirin high-end chips.”

Huawei’s HiSilicon division will also not be able to produce its AI chipsets developed or fabricated using U.S. sanctioned technology, including design tools and libraries from Cadence or Synopsys.

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Precision OT debuts QSFP-DD 400G transceivers

Precision OT introduced its new line of QSFP-DD 400G optical transceivers supporting distances between 100m and 10km.

Precision OT is offering 4 different transceiver variants for this form factor to ensure that network operators' varying needs can be fully met. Precision's QSFP-DD transceivers support the continued growth of network traffic while being backwards compatible with existing QSFP optics.

"Optical transceivers, especially 400G-capable ones, are the key component in enabling more traffic to flow across today's networks," says Chris Page, CTO of Precision OT. "Single lambda 100G will be one of the most cost-effective ways for MSOs and data centers to deal with future bandwidth demands, because a single 100G line can reduce the costs of a typical 4x25G architecture by at least 40%. In this way, the use of four lines of 100G and PAM4 modulation can enable the 400G data rates our customers need to ensure they are ready for the future. For us, at Precision OT, it is about creating networking solutions that grow over time and accommodate increased demand cost-effectively, with both flexibility and agility."

http://www.precisionot.com

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Australia's Macquarie Telecom picks Juniper

Macquarie Telecom, which focuses on Australia’s mid-to-large enterprise and government customers, has selected Juniper Networks for the refresh of its nationwide network from the core to the edge. The nationwide network upgrade by Juniper Networks is slated to be completed by the end of 2020

Specifically, Macquarie is using Juniper's MX10003, MX480 and MX204 Universal Routing Platforms for a variety of core, aggregation and edge functions. Segment routing is utilized to route traffic across the production network - a first by an Australian Juniper Networks customer on the MX10K platform.

“For over twenty years, both companies have built our respective businesses by being disruptors that offer our customers innovation, differentiation and value. Juniper is delighted to be able to help grow Macquarie Telecom’s business further through this network refresh which includes a next-generation segment routing deployment driven by our automation and AI-driven capabilities. Together, we are confident that we can improve time-to-market while increasing the end customer’s experience, all while providing Macquarie Telecom with an ultra-reliable and highly-agile network for years to come,” says Bruce Bennie, VP & GM, ANZ, Juniper Networks.

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CommScope intros cabinet optimized for RF-over-Glass (RFoG)

CommScope introduced its FDH3000 AgileMax Cabinet for RF-over-Glass (RFoG) deployments.

The new field combines CommScope’s AgileMax active optical distribution technology which prevents Optical Beat Interference (OBI) in RFoG deployments with its FDH3000 fiber distribution hub and integrated splitter cabinet. Together, they enable HFC network operators to install the AgileMax platform into an existing Fiber Distribution Hub (FDH) location to improve their networks’ upstream and downstream capacity and data speeds. The cabinet supports standard 19-inch rack mounted equipment using a patented swing frame design that houses the AgileMax product as well as additional passive products for maximum flexibility.

CommScope said its active-splitter technology enables operators to deploy high-capacity OBI-free, FTTH networks leveraging existing DOCSIS infrastructure.

“The FDH3000 AgileMax Cabinet is a turn-key solution for our HFC customers looking to eliminate OBI from their RFoG existing installations and improve network capacity and data speeds,” said Kevin Keefe, Senior Vice President and Segment Leader, Broadband Networks at CommScope. “It’s a showcase for the efficiencies and strengths of our combined company—integrating components of our legacy businesses to enable better cost savings for our customers as they build out their fiber networks of the future.”

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Intelsat: 75% average fill rate for its satellite transponders

Intelsat reported revenue of $482.0 million and net loss of $405.4 million for the three months ended June 30, 2020.

Intelsat’s Chief Executive Officer, Stephen Spengler, said, “Our business demonstrated resiliency in a challenging operating environment, highlighted by a sequential quarterly increase in revenue and Adjusted EBITDA largely from the successful execution of a new agreement with Speedcast in our network services business. Financial results, when compared to the same period last year, reflect the ongoing challenges in our network services business due to the impacts of COVID-19 in the cruise maritime and aeronautical mobility, despite booking new business in merchant maritime and enterprise network applications. The decline in the media business was driven by ongoing secular headwinds that we have experienced over several quarters. Finally, the government services business delivered year-over-year growth in revenues resulting from strong uptake of third-party services and growth in our new FlexGround managed services."

Spengler concluded, “During the period we filed our initial C-band transition plan with the FCC, detailing our roadmap to meet their accelerated spectrum clearing deadlines. The final transition plans are due to be filed with the FCC on August 14, 2020. We will consult with the FCC and continue to refine our plan as that date approaches. Ongoing engagement with our supply chain, vendors, and customers gives us a high degree of confidence that we can execute our transition plan and ensure that the U.S. maintains its 5G leadership position."

Some highlights:

• Network services revenue was $176.7 million (or 37 percent of Intelsat’s total revenue) for the three months ended June 30, 2020, a decrease of 5 percent compared to the three months ended June 30, 2019
• Media revenue was $202.6 million (or 42 percent of Intelsat’s total revenue) for the three months ended June 30, 2020, a decrease of 9 percent compared to the three months ended June 30, 2019.
• Government revenue was $96.1 million (or 20 percent of Intelsat’s total revenue) for the three months ended June 30, 2020, an increase of 3 percent compared to the three months ended June 30, 2019.
• Intelsat’s average fill rate at June 30, 2020 on our approximately 1,675 36 MHz station-kept wide-beam transponders was 75.1 percent, as compared to an average fill rate at March 31, 2020 of 78.5 percent on the company's approximately 1,675 transponders. 
• As of June 30, 2020, the Intelsat fleet included approximately 1,225 36 MHz equivalent transponders of high-throughput Intelsat Epic capacity, reflecting no change from the prior quarter.

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