A group of service providers has joined optical networking vendor Infinera in creating the Open XR Forum, a multi-source working group dedicated to XR optics — a point-to-multipoint coherent pluggable transceiver technology.
Verizon, Lumen Technologies, Windstream and Liberty Global are the first service provider members to join the group. They will work closely with Infinera to advance the development of XR optics-based products and services and accelerate the adoption of point-to-multipoint network architectures. The group also plans to work on standardizing the networking interfaces to achieve multi-vendor interoperability and foster an open vendor ecosystem.
XR optics benefits
Traditional optical networks send data over fiber paths that require identical transceivers at each end to receive signals. This model creates several inefficiencies including under-utilized transceivers and the need for intermediate aggregation points to connect those signals with the internet, network applications and content platforms. In addition, this networking model also requires expensive truck rolls when any upgrades are needed.
According to Infinera, with XR optics, a technology called Nyquist can be used to divide a single high-speed wavelength into multiple low-baud-rate subcarriers. The result is that a single optical fiber can deliver higher capacity reducing the number of transceivers needed by about 50%.
And XR optics also reduces the number of switches and routers needed because the network architecture is simplified and the existing hubs are used more frequently. XR optics also eliminates the need for truck rolls as bandwidth is easier to manage and extra bandwidth can be allocated through software.
Related: Infinera trots out 400G pluggable support, ships 800G
Infinera recently upgraded its XTM and GX platforms to support 400G pluggables. At the time the company said that both of those platforms support XR optics.