Telefónica turns to Huawei to boost its optical performance

Spanish operator group Telefónica has reminded us that Huawei remains a significant fixed line presence in Europe with a pilot of new tech.

It’s all about wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) photonic meshes these days, you see, if you want to keep up with the Joneses in the optical game. And it looks like Huawei is one of the companies that has this technology nailed, using it to enable Telefónica to implement 600G and 800G transmission speeds over its photonic mesh network in Madrid.

“These pilots on the photonic meshes, in which signals are transmitted over optical channels without the need to switch to the electrical domain, are important milestones that build on the 400G speed that was achieved in 2019, also in Madrid,” said Juan José Marfil, Director of transport and IP connectivity at Telefónica.

“The goal is to begin implementing the 400G speed this year and subsequently optimize the Fusion IP Network to meet the needs for higher capacity and speed in view of the exponential growth of both connected devices and data transmission.”

It’s not much good having super-fast FTTH and 5G if the transport network isn’t up to scratch, so it’s good to see things are progressing rapidly on that front. None of the restrictions being placed on Huawei’s participation in the European 5G market are being applied on the fixed-line side, so it’s free to go ahead with pilots like this, for now.