Huawei says it has constructed an upgraded fiber-optic network for the Austrian Federal Railways (ÖBB). The fiber infrastructure, which extends to Austria and Germany, benefits from Optical Transport Network (OTN) and DWDM technology to enable 100-Gbps connectivity.
ÖBB needed the fiber network upgrade due to a 10% to 15% annual growth rate for rail transportation, which had overtaxed its legacy 10-Gbps network used for dispatch and ticketing traffic. The railway also was looking for enhanced train control, particularly in light of plans to expand the rail network to 90% of the country, thus necessitating the construction of new stations. ÖBB also plans to install high-definition video surveillance systems, intelligent office systems, and other digital railway information systems in both existing and future stations, thus putting even more demands on the backbone fiber-optic network.
Huawei applied technologies it commonly supplies to telecom operators to the fiber network upgrade. This includes multi-service OTN capabilities that support virtual circuits and packet cross-connections. The DWDM capabilities, meanwhile, will support up to 8 Tbps over each fiber pair based on 100-Gbps wavelengths. The systems in the network can be upgraded to support 400-Gbps wavelengths in the future, with even higher transmission rates possible as well. The systems house also has supplied its Fiber Doctor (FD) and Optical Doctor (OD) capabilities to support automatic commissioning and optimization.
Huawei says it has worked on the project with partner NIC Solutions since 2016 to install the enhanced systems in 52 locations in Austria and Germany so far.
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