SK Telecom names Nokia Siemens Networks as its 100G optical supplier

SK Telecom, Korea's largest wireless operator, on Monday began incorporating Nokia Siemens Networks' 100G technology into its existing 40G network.

By making this move it will be able to expand its transmission capacity to support the growing use of smartphones.

When this deployment is complete, SK will be able to simultaneously transmit up to 80 wavelengths, each carrying 100G on a single optical fiber, providing a total of 8 Tbps per fiber.

One of the challenges that providers like SK Telecom face is that while they see the need to expand their networks to 100G, they need to do it without having to spend capital to install new fiber.

Tapani Sairanen, head of Asia and Middle East cluster, customer sales support, optical networks, Nokia Siemens Networks, said that NSN can "help SK Telecom transition to a 100G network cost efficiently, as our technology eliminates the need for costly installation of more fiber."

In this expansion project, SK is leveraging NSN's hiT 7300 DWDM platform. Since the platform uses coherent transmission based on CP-QPSK (coherent polarization multiplexed quadrature phase shift keying) modulation, the vendor said it can use the service provider's embedded network infrastructure.

Besides network equipment, NSN is providing its network management system in addition to network planning, optimization and implementation, and hardware and software maintenance care services.

This latest win comes after Marlin Equity Partners announced an agreement to purchase NSN's optical business unit in early December.

NSN has traditionally trailed other optical vendors, including Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE: ALU), Ciena (Nasdaq: CIEN), and Infinera, which have racked up a number of other high profile 100G wins. However, the win with SK in addition to XO Communications and TeliaSonera show they are gaining some momentum in the rapidly consolidating optical networking market segment.

For more:
- see the release

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