5G Driving Increased Bandwidth Demands
According to Cisco’s Annual Internet Report, globally, there will be 1.4 billion total 5G connections by 2023.  Network infrastructure being deployed to support 5G is driving bandwidths higher than legacy infrastructure can support based on traditional optical transmission technology. 5G networks are expected to have traffic from a higher number of endpoints to aggregate, compared to legacy 4G LTE. These drivers for increased bandwidth [demand] are creating a challenge for legacy optical service provider edge and access infrastructure to support this traffic.

The application of coherent technology to the existing network infrastructure may be a competitive differentiator for service providers looking to support the scale and capacity needed in the 5G era.

Coherent Moves into Edge and Access
Much progress has been made over the past decade to reduce the size, power and cost of coherent solutions which has enabled its evolution from supporting long-haul to metro networks. More recently, requirements from data center network operators for high-capacity, high-density, solutions in pluggable form factors widely used in switch and router slots have driven industry-wide investments into ultra-compact, low-power and economical coherent solutions that can be manufactured in high volumes.

Coherent solutions have very good receiving sensitivity, and are extremely tolerant to fiber types, chromatic dispersion, polarization mode dispersion (PMD), and back reflections, which can simplify operational deployment in edge and access networks. In particular, providers offering 5G wireless and enterprise services, can benefit from coherent technology because it has ample optical margins which can easily handle the condition and reaches of the access fiber plant resulting in shorter provisioning times.

Acacia’s Edge and Access Portfolio
With the coming of 5G and edge computing, the time is right for coherent optics to take the next step and migrate to edge and access networks. Acacia has a long-standing track record of driving coherent into new market applications by delivering the technology, scalability, feature set, and innovation that service providers need to maintain and grow their networks over time. Leveraging our 10 years of high-performance coherent transmission expertise, Acacia recently announced a portfolio of products to address 5G wireless X-haul applications.   This portfolio includes:

• A coherent bi-directional pluggable optical module for cable and 5G wireless X-haul applications. Acacia recently published a white paper on how coherent bi-directional modules can enable cable and 5G network providers to easily meet rising bandwidth demands in fiber limited networks.
• A 100G coherent point-to-point edge and access solution for 5G Wireless X-haul and Enterprise Services. Acacia published a white paper that examines the constraints that prohibit legacy point-to-point edge/access solutions from scaling to higher bandwidths, and discusses how coherent optical solutions can provide operational and scalability benefits in these networks when increasing bandwidth to 100Gbps and beyond.
• A 100G coherent DWDM module for new architectures in access networks, such as cable/fiber deep and 5G wireless X-haul applications. Acacia’s new 100G coherent DWDM module was designed to provide a scalable traffic aggregation solution, as well as an upgrade path to migrate from existing 10G DWDM networks to higher-performing 100G coherent links in access networks to boost capacity by a factor of ten.

All of Acacia’s edge and access solutions leverage its 3D Siliconization approach, which utilizes high-volume manufacturing processes and benefits from the maturity of Acacia’s silicon photonics technology.

5G Transport & Network Strategies Virtual Event
With the completion of 3GPP Release 16 this summer, 5G moves into an exciting new phase of advanced use cases and rich applications for consumers and, increasingly, enterprises.  This week, Light Reading’s 5G Transport & Networking Strategies Digital Symposium will discuss this, and more, and Acacia is excited to be speaking at this event.  If you plan to attend, don’t miss Tom Williams, Acacia’s VP of Marketing, on the panel “Transport Architecture Evolution for 5G Phase 2 Services” on Thursday, Nov 5th at 1:20 pm.

If you want to learn more about Acacia’s growing portfolio of edge and access solutions, feel free to contact us.

October is a hot month for cable technology shows with both the SCTE Cable-Tec Expo and the Light Reading Cable Next-Gen Digital Symposium taking place. While both shows are virtual, we expect there will be some conversations around the emergence of coherent technology in the edge and access market.  As Sterling Perrin, Sr. Principal Analyst at Heavy Reading commented in Acacia’s first edge and access product announcement, “Over the past decade, coherent technology has moved beyond its long-haul origins and is now firmly entrenched in the metro.  With the coming of 5G and edge computing, the time is right for coherent optics to take the next step and migrate to edge and access networks.”

Meeting Growing Bandwidth Demand
Streaming services for residential entertainment have long been drivers for bandwidth demand over service provider access networks. Applications that go beyond streaming entertainment, such as uploading 4K-resolution videos into the cloud for social-network sharing and the increased use of two-way video chats and file sharing tied to work-from-home requirements, are driving the need for increased bandwidth, especially when traffic from a large number of end users is aggregated. The ability of the legacy optical service provider edge and access infrastructure to support this growing bandwidth demand is a challenge. That’s why cable network operators (a.k.a, multi-service operators, MSOs) currently utilizing 10G optical links are seeking to upgrade to 100G links that operate over edge and access fiber routes.
Examples of different connectivity solutions in the service provider edge/access portion of the network.

In fiber-constrained access environments, it’s not unusual to have data transmission over a single fiber strand carrying both downstream and upstream traffic —a.k.a, bi-directional (BiDi) traffic. Network operators upgrading their service provider edge/access bandwidth face the challenge of overcoming limitations due to legacy optical technology not capable of supporting data rates beyond a certain speed for a given distance, while at the same time supporting BiDi transmission.

The Migration of Coherent into Edge and Access
Meanwhile, much progress has been made over the past decade to reduce the size, power and cost of coherent solutions which has enabled its evolution from supporting long-haul to metro networks. More recently, requirements from data center network operators for high-capacity, high-density, solutions in pluggable form factors widely used for client-optics slots have driven industry-wide investments into ultra-compact, low-power and economical coherent solutions that can be manufactured in high volumes. This opens up new addressable markets for coherent solutions in edge and access networks including cable that can provide scalable and operationally flexible solutions to address growing bandwidth demands.

Cable Network Applications for Coherent
The cable industry has been driving standardization of coherent for access aggregation in this segment for quite some time.  As the hybrid fiber-coax (HFC) networks evolve toward remote PHY architectures, fiber is being deployed deeper in the network, resulting in increased available bandwidth to residential end-user customers, while eliminating bottlenecks in the HFC network. 10G optical interfaces are pushed closer to the end users, resulting in aggregation points in the network where 10-20 remote PHY devices come together.

Remote PHY network

Acacia believes that coherent can be an effective way to transport these aggregated signals back to the hub. In some cases, it may only be necessary to transport a single coherent wavelength back to the hub, but since coherent solutions leverage dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) technology, this approach could provide the capability to expand capacity by up to two orders of magnitude in the future.

As discussed above, in cable networks, particularly Remote PHY and fiber deep applications, providers often run into situations where only a single fiber is available. Historically, these networks have been served by 10G Bi-Di optical modules. To meet growing bandwidth demands, a coherent BiDi solution can provide these networks with an upgrade path to 100G and beyond. Also, in these situations where optical waves are transmitted in a single fiber medium from both directions, coherent receivers can efficiently help to eliminate the crosstalk from back reflections when it operates at a different wavelength than its transmitter.

Acacia’s Portfolio of Edge and Access Solutions
To serve the cable market, Acacia has developed solutions designed specifically for these applications.

• This week, Acacia announced that it was sampling a new 100G DWDM coherent pluggable solution. Offered in the QSFP-DD form factor, Acacia’s new 100G DWDM module was designed to provide a scalable traffic aggregation solution, as well as an upgrade path to migrate from existing 10G WDM networks to higher-performing 100G DWDM coherent links for new architectures in access networks, such as cable/fiber deep and 5G wireless X-haul applications.
• Also this week, Acacia announced the sampling of new coherent bi-directional pluggable optical module solutions designed to transmit and receive data in both directions on a single fiber for 100G and beyond. Offered in a pluggable CFP2 form factor, Acacia’s coherent bi-directional module is designed to deliver an operationally efficient and cost-effective way for telecommunications and cable operators to increase capacity in fiber limited networks.

Let’s Talk About Cable and Coherent
If you want to learn more about how coherent is ready to help cable providers, click here to set up a meeting.