Tag: optical

Trinity College Dublin Launches €1.3M ‘Twilight’ Project: Revolutionising Optical Networks with Digital Twins

Trinity College Dublin announces the launch of the €1.3 million ‘Twilight’ project, aiming to revolutionise optical networks with cutting-edge digital twin technology, enabling rapid and disruption-free advancements.

Minister for the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, Patrick O’Donovan TD, has recently announced 28 funding awards valued at €34 million to support research across seven Higher Education Institutions.

One of the awarded projects is Twilight: Twin Lightpaths, A Digital Twin Framework For Full Automation Of Disaggregated Optical Networks. Marco Ruffini, Professor at Trinity College Dublin (TCD), Principal Investigator in the CONNECT Centre, and lead author of the project proposal, emphasises the project’s transformative potential:

“Optical networks are the lifeblood of the internet. They must evolve to support the ever-increasing usage of the internet and digital innovations like Smart Cities and Virtual/Augmented Reality. Twilight’s digital twin project will ensure safe, rapid advancements without network disruption.

We are grateful to Minister O’Donovan for supporting this important initiative. I would also like to thank our colleagues from HEAnet and GÉANT who supported us and are going to be collaborating with us on this project.”

HEAnet, Ireland’s National Education and Research Network, manages a national optical network of over 2,500 km, which is a central part of Ireland’s national research infrastructure. HEAnet has collaborated with the SFI Connect Centre over many years, providing connectivity services and research demonstrations on the HEAnet production network. .

In 2022, HEAnet connected directly to Prof. Ruffini’s Open Ireland test network at Trinity College Dublin. This has provided Prof. Ruffini’s group with access to the production HEAnet optical network while also enabling HEAnet to gain valuable insights into the characteristics of the HEAnet production network. HEAnet connects to the GÉANT pan-European research and education network in both Dublin and Cork. The Twilight project will provide optical connectivity from the Open Ireland test bed to the GÉANT optical network via the HEAnet network for the first time.  

Eoin Kenny, Innovation and R&D Manager at HEAnet, highlights the project’s efficiency: 

“Planning network changes has always been challenging. Twilight’s digital twin will streamline this process, save time and help HEAnet to optimise our network resources.

We are very pleased with the work carried out on the OpenIreland research infrastructure and look forward to continuing this close collaboration.”

HEAnet is a member of GÉANT, the collaboration of European National Research and Education Networks (NRENs), who interconnects Europe’s NRENs with the high bandwidth, high speed and highly resilient pan-European backbone, together connecting Europe’s researchers, academics and students to each other, and linking them to over half the countries in the world.

Guy Roberts, Senior Transport Network Architect at GÉANT also expressed enthusiasm for the Twilight project: 

“The future for anyone working with optical networks looks bright with all the new technologies on our side. We are continually dealing with the issues of dynamic provisioning of optical paths. Despite making extensive use of optical equipment vendors’ planning tools, we have discovered anomalous situations that can lead to some level of service disruption.

GÉANT will work with TCD and HEAnet to provide measurements to train the digital twin algorithms, help with any fine-tuning and carry out experiments on the use cases we have jointly defined.”

To learn more about the Twilight project or to get involved, contact marco.ruffini@tcd.ie. 

Data Edge partners with HUBER+SUHNER to access unique optical solutions

Network optimisation company Data Edge today announces a new partnership with HUBER+SUHNER. The collaboration is expected to generate half a million euro (€500,000) for Data Edge in additional revenue over the next two years.

Headquartered in Switzerland, HUBER+SUHNER manufactures electrical and optical connectivity solutions, serving a variety of industries. A global leader, its solutions and products include optical switches, global navigation satellite system (GNSS) distribution and antennas, as well as cabling and connectors. This new partnership with Bray-based Data Edge is the company’s first in Ireland.

The collaboration enables Data Edge to enhance its data centre offering by bringing several new innovative solutions to the market in Ireland and making use of the unique GNNS distribution equipment and ‘power over fibre’ antenna solutions from HUBER+SUHNER.

It will also benefit Data Edge’s existing customers, enabling access to the latest generation optical distribution frames and lab switching which improves the speed of connections between communication facilities.

Data Edge and HUBER+SUHNER expect to generate new business through this partnership. In fact, they are already working together on a significant project with a leading multinational technology company.

Commenting on the partnership, Paul Phelan, CEO, Data Edge said: “Partnering with HUBER+SUHNER has been a goal for us for quite some time, as its suite of products are a perfect fit for our customers’ evolving needs. Due to our experience and position in the Irish market, we are a natural fit for this partnership and are looking forward to leveraging it fully to grow our business, particularly our data centre offering.”

Mark Alexander, Sales Manager, Data Centre at HUBER+SUHNER said: “When considering a partnership in the Irish market, Data Edge stood out to us as an experienced potential collaborator, having done excellent work here for a number of years on high-level projects such as the National Timing Protocol Timesaver and the recently launched National Timing Grid. Data Edge’s extensive work with optical switching installations and lab automation, as well as its standing in the telecommunications synchronisation sector, made them a natural choice to become our first partner in Ireland.”

Data Edge will be showcasing equipment from HUBER+SUHNER on its stand (#127) at the Data Centres Ireland show at the RDS convention centre this month, 22-23 November.

Nokia Bell Labs sets a new world record of 800 Gbps for transoceanic optical transmission

Nokia today announced it has set two new world records in submarine optical transmission, both of which will shape the next generation of optical networking equipment.

The first sets a new optical speed record for transoceanic distances. Nokia Bell Labs researchers were able to demonstrate an 800-Gbps data rate at a distance of 7865 km using a single wavelength of light. That distance is two times greater than what current state-of-the-art equipment can transmit at the same capacity and is approximately the geographical distance between Seattle and Tokyo. Nokia Bell Labs achieved this milestone at its optical research testbed in Paris-Saclay, France.

The second record was achieved by both Nokia Bell Labs and Nokia subsidiary Alcatel Submarine Networks (ASN), establishing a net throughput of 41 Tbps over 291 km via a C-band unrepeated transmission system. C-band unrepeated systems are commonly used to connect islands and offshore platforms to each other and the mainland proper. The previous record for these kinds of systems is 35 Tbps over the same distance. Nokia Bell Labs and ASN broke the record at ASN’s research testbed facility, also in Paris-Saclay.

Nokia Bell Labs and ASN presented the scientific findings behind both records on the 4th and 5th of October at the European Conference on Optical Communications (ECOC), held in Glasgow, Scotland.

Making lasers that blink faster

Nokia Bell Labs and Alcatel Submarine Networks were able to achieve both world records through the innovation of higher-baud-rate technologies. “Baud” measures the number of times per second that an optical laser switches on and off, or “blinks”. Higher baud rates mean higher data throughput and will allow future optical systems to transmit the same capacities per wavelength over far greater distances. In the case of transoceanic systems, these increased baud rates will double the distance at which we could transmit the same amount of capacity, allowing us to efficiently bridge cities on opposite sides of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. In the case of C-band unrepeated systems, higher baud would allow service providers connecting islands or off-shore platforms to achieve higher capacities with fewer transceivers and without the addition of new frequency bands.

The research behind these two records will have significant impact on the next generation of submarine optical transmission systems. While future deployments of submarine fiber will take advantage of new fiber technologies like multimode and multicore, the existing undersea fiber networks can take advantage of next-generation higher-baud-rate transceivers to boost their performance and increase their long-term viability.

Sylvain Almonacil, Research Engineer at Nokia Bell Labs, said: “With these higher baud rates, we can directly link most of the world’s continents with 800 Gbps of capacity over individual wavelengths. Previously, these distances were inconceivable for that capacity. Furthermore, we’re not resting on our achievement. This world record is the next step toward next-generation Terabit-per-second submarine transmissions over individual wavelengths.”

Hans Bissessur, Unrepeated Systems Group leader at ASN, said: “These research advances show that that we can achieve better performance over the existing fiber infrastructure. Whether these optical systems are crisscrossing the world or linking the islands of an archipelago, we can extend their lifespans.”