BT Ireland and Huawei are laying claim to the industry's first 1.2 Tb/s transmission real-time trial based on a commercial product platform in a live network
The trial used Huawei's OptiXtreme series oDSP chips and optical transmission modules to implement a high-speed interconnection between two data centers in Dublin.
Huawei said the OptiXtreme series oDSP could sense key parameters of optical channels, and compensate for link impairments and optimize the transmission spectrum efficiency accordingly. With Huawei's Super-C line system, single-fiber capacity of 48 Tb/s can be reached, which Huawei said was six times larger than today’s common WDM systems based on 100G wavelength channels.
BT Ireland's choice of trialing with Huawei's chips and optical transmission gear is notable because late last year parent company BT said it was yanking Huawei's equipment from the core of its existing 3G and 4G mobile operations, and would not use the Chinese company in key parts of its 5G build out.
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Earlier this year, BT and fellow U.K. telecom operator Vodafone asked the government to resolve issues around using Huawei's 5G gear in the face of U.S. President Donald Trump's campaign against the company.
Citing security concerns, the Trump administration put Huawei on an "Entity List" blacklist on May 20. The U.S. has maintained that Huawei works with the Chinese government by providing backdoor access in its telecom gear for espionage purposes, which Huawei has long denied.
Huawei has contended that it's a pawn in the trade war between China and the U.S. In June, the Trump administration increased tariffs to 25% on $200 billion worth of Chinese products. Negotiations between China and the U.S. have been ongoing and President Trump recently said he might not sign a trade deal with China until after the 2020 election is completed.
According to third quarter research by MTN Consulting, Huawei's telecom market share in the quarter was roughly the sum of both Ericsson and Nokia, which are its two closest rivals. Huawei’s market share wasn't much higher than three years ago, and was flat relative to the third quarters in 2018 and 2017, according to MTN Consulting. Driven largely by its smartphone sales, Huawei reported a 27% increase in its recent third-quarter revenue.