MTN South Africa, in collaboration with Huawei, has achieved a significant milestone by completing Africa’s inaugural large-scale deployment of an 800G optical network.
This achievement marks a pivotal advancement towards establishing green and reliable networks, fostering digital transformation, and promoting sustainable development across Africa.
The deployment of 800G links, boasting a single fiber capacity of 48Tbps, has interconnected data centers located in Johannesburg, Durban, and Cape Town. This domestic backbone infrastructure is poised to cater to MTN’s burgeoning capacity requirements, facilitating the delivery of cloud-based business services, enhanced home broadband, and fortified wireless networks.
Additionally, it promises optimal cost efficiency per bit transmitted and enhanced energy efficiency. Consequently, MTN South Africa emerges as the forefront runner in pioneering this innovative transport technology, reaffirming its commitment to delivering top-tier, energy-efficient, and resilient networks throughout Africa.
MTN South Africa has harnessed Huawei’s optical transport solutions, leveraging technologies such as 400G/800G per channel, Optical Cross-Connect (OXC), and Automatically Switched Optical Network (ASON).
The strategic deployment of the OXC solution within backbone nodes not only addresses long-term capacity requirements and degree expansion needs but also enhances network energy efficiency by reducing power consumption by an impressive 60 percent compared to conventional ROADM technology.
Furthermore, the ASON solution ensures reliability, flexibility, and robustness, essential characteristics for next-generation optical transport systems, while also enabling service differentiation and reducing operational and maintenance costs.
Takalani Ligudu, Senior Specialist in Core Fibre and Transmission at MTN South Africa, emphasized the strategic significance of the 800G, OXC, and ASON scale deployment with Huawei, attributing it to MTN’s unwavering commitment to leading the delivery of a transformative digital ecosystem for its customers. Ligudu expressed pride in MTN’s achievement of possessing one of the world’s most advanced networks and leveraging industry-leading technologies to provide superior network services to customers across South Africa.
Victor Zhou, President of the Optical Transmission Domain at Huawei, hailed the collaboration with MTN South Africa as a tremendous honor, underscoring the significance of bringing leading-edge and environmentally friendly optical technologies to South Africa. He emphasized the role of these advancements in constructing advanced optical networks crucial for digital development and underlining Huawei’s commitment to fostering technological innovation and infrastructure development across Africa.
