Huawei’s OptiX Alps-WDM Solution Gains Market Momentum

Sometimes when you solve one customer’s problem, you solve many customers’ problems.

That’s the case with Huawei’s OptiX Alps-WDM solution, first announced earlier this year at MWC Barcelona. OptiX Alps-WDM helps carriers build metropolitan area networks (MANs) with optimal TCO, and Huawei is promoting the tangible success of the solution for China Unicom Chongqing, noting that the carrier’s power consumption, physical space footprint of sites, and service rollout time are all greatly reduced.

That essentially solved the challenges China Unicom Chongqing encountered in terms of fiber, space, and power consumption during its OTN-to-CO process, according to Richard Jin, President, Huawei Optical Product Line.

“Alps” is actually an acronym that speaks to those challenges:

(You can find a further breakdown of each characteristic here, as well as a breakdown of the common challenges all carriers face when building and deploying metro WDM networks in their markets.)

Alps-WDM is primarily used from the aggregation to access layers on the transport network, according to Huawei. The Blade OXC Nano, at only 2 U, can be installed on a pole. It is used for 5G backhaul and upstream transmission between home broadband OLTs and carries OTN private line services.

At a press event at MWC Shanghai, Jin shared specifics of China Unicorn Chongqing success story in the face of insufficient access to fiber resources and limited site space and power constraints.

According to Jin, after deploying the Alps-WDM solution, 100 Gbps is delivered to metro access sites, and technologies such as pooling and OXC increased bandwidth by 10 times. Cost per bit has been reduced by 30%, fiber resource utilization has improved by 50%, and TTM has been greatly improved.

China Unicorn Chongqing’s achievement has helped prove the business case for Alps-WDM, which is in turn accelerating momentum in the market for a product that only launched at the end of March.  Since then, Huawei has signed  dozens of POs worldwide for Alps-WDM.

“The Alps-WDM pooling architecture reduces power consumption and size,” Jin said. “In addition, 100G to site reduces the per-bit cost, and the automatic and simplified O&M features are recognized by customers. The Alps-WDM solution helps carriers build efficient and cost-effective WDM networks.”

It’s all part of the industry evolution to 5.5G – marked by 10 gigabit downlink and 1 gigabit uplink. Jin noted that Alps–WDM is one solution in a portfolio of technologies that will make 5.5G reality, including FTTR F30/B30, 50G PON, and 400G/800G. Like with Alps-WDM, each has been developed, tested, and innovated jointly with key partners and customers and deployed in a variety of scenarios worldwide, from Asia to Europe, Middle East to Africa, and the Americas.

“The birth of 5.5G gives us a common vision and dream for the future network,” Jin said. “It will profoundly change people’s ways and experience of life and work.”