A modern transport network
Open Fiber is developing a modern national transport infrastructure which will make it possible to collect traffic from the FTTH access network and deliver it to operators, ensuring equal access and service conditions, regardless of whether the point of delivery is local or remote.
In this sense, the network enables a complete portfolio of services to be offered in order to meet the needs of an increasingly heterogeneous market, from end-to-end connectivity with guaranteed bandwidth and controlled latency, to the future offering of a network and computing infrastructure to host physical and virtual third party functions, all in order to improve the customer Quality of Experience, support the delivery of high-resolution video content, offer security solutions and Internet of Things (IoT) platforms.
Open Fiber has a transport network with an open, carrier-grade, programmable, high performance and scalable architecture, which allows Operators to provide innovative ultra-broadband services while simplifying configuration and management activities.
For the configuration and management of transport services, Open Fiber uses innovative Network Automation techniques that create automated workflows, which receive the work order from the CRM and activate it on the network, speeding up the lead time for the release of new services and reducing the possibility of errors, thus improving the Quality of Experience perceived by customers.
The Open Fiber Transport Network envisages only two levels:
- a core or national backbone network
- an aggregation network (primary and secondary)
The design of the national backbone is based on two domains: one optical (OTN/WDM), to manage transmission with the most efficient techniques and at the lowest cost, and one electrical (IP/MPLS) for the processing and routing of packet traffic. It ensures optimal use of valuable transmission resources, quality of service throughout the chain, as well as process flexibility and automation to rapidly deliver traditional and innovative services.
The National PoPs are distributed in such a way as to ensure full coverage of the entire country and envisages very high capacity optical connections (100/200G coherent lambdas).
The backbone network is implemented thanks to an intelligent EON (Elastic Optical Network) type DWDM (Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing) optical partial mesh, high capacity and scalable network. ROADM–FLEX multi-degree (Reconfigurable Optical Add and Drop Multiplexer) and GMPLS/WSON (CD – Colorless, Directionless) technologies are used with which it is possible to simultaneously aggregate multiple optical channels on a single fibre optic cable and thus manage an increasing number of customers and services, thus fully exploiting the very high transmission bandwidth of fiber, in the order of the Terabit (1,000,000 Megabits). A capacity unimaginable until just a few years ago, which will support the Ultra-broadband applications that will be developed in the coming years (high resolution video, virtual reality, augmented reality, tactile Internet, real-time gaming, autonomous driving) and in general the innovative services of future 5G networks.
The aggregation network, consisting of Edge POPs and with high capacity optical connections, provides Level 2 functionality as well as support for the MPLS protocol where necessary, in order to provide the wholesale services required by operators.
