Infinera Paves the Way to 5G with New Open Mobile Transport Solutions
February 14 2017 - 7:00AM
Infinera, a provider of Intelligent Transport Networks, has
expanded its Mobile Fronthaul and Mobile Backhaul Solutions to
support mobile operators as their networks evolve to become
5G-ready. Infinera introduced a new range of flexponders for mobile
fronthaul and a new EMXP Access Unit for mobile backhaul to extend
the capabilities of XTM Series-based solutions, providing
investment protection and meeting stringent performance
requirements for mobile operators as networks scale to 5G.
A photo accompanying this announcement is available at
http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/04723e3c-7818-4f51-baa1-9fda5d622e07
5G mobile networks bring the promise of enabling the Internet of
Things, high-speed mobile broadband, and ultra-reliable services –
all of which are driving the need for dramatically higher capacity
and significantly lower-latency mobile transport. As 5G radio
access networks (RAN) are expected to be fully standardized and
ready for deployment by 2020, mobile operators need fronthaul and
backhaul solutions today in order to have wireline infrastructure
in place to fully support 5G deployments.
The ability to evolve to future 5G requirements is a key factor
in Infinera’s Mobile Fronthaul and Backhaul Solutions announced
today. As 5G standards evolve, multiple future fronthaul scenarios
exist that could lead to network investment dead-ends if deployed
fronthaul solutions are not able to adapt. There are a number of
critical attributes of a solution that can support 4G today and
evolve smoothly to 5G in the future:
- Low latency and highly accurate
synchronization. Advanced 5G applications, such as
autonomous vehicles, require extremely low latency and
high-performance network synchronization in both fronthaul and
backhaul networks.
- Configuration Flexibility. The solution must
be reconfigurable in software to support anticipated fronthaul
protocol changes and must include hardened and non-hardened
platform options to support different deployment environments.
- Openness. The solution must be fully
programmable via software-defined network (SDN) controllers and
orchestrators, and able to support any 5G radio solution.
To address these challenges, Infinera has introduced fully open
and flexible solutions to extend mobile transport evolution to
5G:
- Infinera 5G-ready Mobile Fronthaul Solution.
Adding a new range of flexponders for mobile fronthaul provides
mobile operators with deployment flexibility via rack-mounted unit,
hardened access unit and hardened clamshell options. Mobile
operators also benefit from functional flexibility in which all
units are fully reconfigurable to operate as transponders, as
muxponders, or in hybrid mode, a level of flexibility that Infinera
believes is unique to the industry. The flexponders enable service
flexibility with support for Common Public Radio Interface (CPRI)
and Open Base Station Architecture Initiative (OBSAI) mobile
fronthaul protocols and Ethernet in both 4G and 5G environments.
The flexponder features are coupled with the high-performance
capabilities required for mobile fronthaul, such as low latency,
superior synchronization and new fronthaul-specific capabilities
including real-time delay compensation that enables better support
for RAN in fiber protection scenarios.
- Infinera Packet-Optical Mobile Backhaul
Solution. Infinera’s Mobile Backhaul Solution now includes
a new EMXP Access Unit that extends Infinera’s range of
packet-optical transport switches to hardened environments such as
street and cell site cabinets. The new unit supports a common
software and feature set with the rest of the EMXP range, which
includes Metro Ethernet Forum (MEF) services, low latency, superior
Synchronous Ethernet and 1588v2 synchronization and sophisticated
network resilience options.
- Infinera Open Architecture. Infinera’s Mobile
Fronthaul and Backhaul Solutions are designed to be fully open to
support SDN control by any orchestrator and offer the ability to
transport any radio vendor’s equipment. For mobile backhaul, the
full range of Infinera’s EMXP units now also supports a direct
Openflow interface, controlled by Infinera’s Xceed Software Suite.
This provides a multi-layer SDN control platform and SDN
applications.
“Mobile operators are increasingly looking to deploy Cloud RAN
commercially for LTE Advanced Pro and expect the technology to play
a key role in 5G,” says Gabriel Brown, Principal Analyst, Mobile
Networks and 5G at Heavy Reading. “Among the challenges operators
face are diverse implementation options and uncertainty about the
functional split in the 5G RAN, making it critical that
high-performance fronthaul transport solutions are sufficiently
flexible that they can be upgraded, in software, to meet future
requirements.”
“The mobile industry is on the cusp of a step change to 5G.
While the radio network needs to radically transform to the new 5G
infrastructure and services, the underlying transport network
requires a seamless evolution that protects operator investments
now,” said Sten Nordell, CTO Metro Business Group at Infinera. “One
key aspect to this is the ability to support future 5G mid-haul and
cross-haul architectures in a truly open transport environment
without lock-in to the radio vendor. We are already working with
key players in the industry to allow pre-5G networks to be tested
against high-performance transport networks and will demonstrate
this at Mobile World Congress.”
The hardened clamshell and EMXP Access Unit are scheduled for
availability in the second quarter of this year; the rest of the
products and features listed above are shipping and available
today.
Additional Resources
- White paper: The Evolution of Mobile Fronthaul to Support RAN
Architecture Migration to 5G
- Application Note: Enabling Cloud-RAN with Mobile Fronthaul
- Application Note: Evolving Mobile Backhaul to Support LTE-A and
Beyond
Contacts:
Media: Anna VueTel. +1 (916) 595-8157avue@infinera.com |
Investors:Jeff HustisTel: + 1 (408)
213-7150jhustis@infinera.com |
About InfineraInfinera (NASDAQ:INFN) provides
Intelligent Transport Networks, enabling carriers, cloud operators,
governments and enterprises to scale network bandwidth, accelerate
service innovation and automate optical network operations.
Infinera’s end-to-end packet-optical portfolio is designed for
long-haul, subsea, data center interconnect and metro applications.
Infinera’s unique large scale photonic integrated circuits enable
innovative optical networking solutions for the most demanding
networks. To learn more about Infinera visit www.infinera.com,
follow us on Twitter @Infinera and read our latest blog posts at
www.infinera.com/blog.
Infinera and the Infinera logo are registered trademarks of
Infinera Corporation.
This press release contains forward-looking statements relating
to the potential economic, technical and operational benefits of
deploying Infinera products and their targeted release dates. These
statements are not guarantees of results and should not be
considered as an indication of future activity or future
performance. Actual results may vary materially from these
expectations as a result of various risks and uncertainties.
Information about these risks and uncertainties, and other risks
and uncertainties that affect Infinera’s business, is contained in
the risk factors section and other sections of Infinera’s Quarterly
Report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended September 24, 2016 as
filed with the SEC on November 1, 2016, as well subsequent reports
filed with or furnished to the SEC. These reports are available on
Infinera’s website at www.infinera.com and the SEC’s website
at www.sec.gov. Infinera assumes no obligation to, and does not
currently intend to, update any such forward-looking
statements.
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