VIAVI collaborates with Microsemi to accelerate Flexible OTN and Flexible Ethernet Networking deployment for 5G

VIAVI Solutions announced the collaboration with Microsemi to enable flexible optical networking technologies needed to meet the demands of 5G networks.

With the VIAVI ONT-600 and Microsemi’s DIGI-G5, the newest member of its award-winning DIGI OTN processors, telecom service providers globally now have solution platforms to build, test and quickly deploy 5G-ready optical networks including OTUCn, Flexible OTN (FlexO) and Flexible Ethernet (FlexE) technologies.

As communication service providers and their technology partners investigate 5G network requirements, the transport network is a key focus, necessitating an architecture capable of supporting stringent bandwidth, traffic modelling, network slicing, latency and time synchronization characteristics.

With the largest population of mobile subscribers in the world, China’s service providers are at the forefront of this initiative. China Mobile is planning to adopt Slicing Packet Network (SPN) with FlexE for its 5G transport network, while other carriers are pursuing Optical Transport Network with enhancements like Mobile optimized OTN (M-OTN).

VIAVI and Microsemi bring individual strengths to the mission of developing and validating platforms for these different transport technologies. The VIAVI ONT has been proven in lab testing of 100G components and systems and has the industry’s first 400G support to include forward error correction (FEC), PAM4 modulation, and now with the complete support of all 400G transponder form factors including CFP8, QSFPDD, and OSFP. The ONT can also scale with a range of applications to address inflexion points such as FlexE, OTUCn and FlexO.

Microsemi’s latest DIGI-G5 OTN processor delivers an unprecedented 1.2 terabits per second (Tbps) of combined OTN and client interfaces, and is first to market with newly standardized 25 Gigabit Ethernet (GE), 50GE, 200GE, 400GE, Flexible OTN (FlexO & OTUCn) and FlexE with an integrated security engine enabling flexible encrypted optical connections. DIGI-G5 enables packet-optical transport platforms to triple in capacity while slashing power consumption by 50 percent per port.