Huawei’s AgilePOL passive optical network hardware supports Enel's headquarters

Huawei says its AgilePOL, a passive optical LAN (POL) system, is now supporting services in international power supplier Enel's headquarters building. The passive optical LAN approach improves service availability in Enel's headquarters while using less space and energy, says Huawei.

Enel previously had introduced such bandwidth-consuming services as desktop cloud, mobile office, and video conferencing to enhance office efficiency and stimulate its global presence. Challenges from complex network structure, high latency, and low network speeds contributed to the failure of this original network in supporting these new services, however. According to Huawei, issues in cabling, costs, energy consumption, space occupation, and upgrade/capacity expansion in traditional networks also caused challenges.

Separate cabling for audio, video, and data services cost consuming approximately 80% of the total campus network investments is one example of such issues. By using a large number of access switches, electricity consumption and air conditioning use were on the rise, resulting in energy consumption, and taking up physical space as well.

To address Enel's service delivery issues, Huawei supplied its POL technology based on GPON. Launched in April 2016, Huawei's Agile POL technology has a flat network architecture, is composed of converged optical line terminal (OLT), passive optical distribution network (ODN), and optical network units (ONUs) (see "Huawei introduces AgilePOL passive optical LAN").

Delivering gigabit speeds for more than 20 miles, and video, data, and voice all in one fiber cable, Huawei's POL technology uses a dual-home mechanism for network reliability in case of network failure. The switchover time is less than 50 milliseconds, and the ODN network is future-proof for supporting 10G PON/40G PON evolution.

Enel increased network speed from 100 Mbps to 700 Mbps with the new network, a network renovation estimated to save energy by over 60%, Huawei says. Enel's headquarters is an eight-story building with more than 1,000 employees, and each story occupied one equipment room according to the original network technology. After network renovation, Huawei says the entire building only needs one equipment room, as opposed to the previous eight equipment rooms needed.

"Huawei POL provides what we need in digitization within the company and makes our network more reliable, efficient, and energy-saving," said Renzo Valente, Enel's head of global telecommunications. "Huawei is a reliable partner, and I'm looking forward to more cooperation with Huawei in digitization and sustainability."

According to Enel's 2017-2019 strategic plan, it will continue to focus on digital transformation to reduce CO2 emissions, including live streaming meetings and conventions, mobile work, GPS tracking tools for operational teams, and drones to monitor networks and systems.

For related articles, visit the FTTx Topic Center.

For more information on FTTx equipment and suppliers, visit the Lightwave Buyer's Guide.