MTN South Africa and Huawei Completed Africa’s First Scale Deployment of 800G Optical Network

MTN South Africa and Huawei have completed Africa’s first scale deployment of an 800G optical network, marking a significant step towards green and reliable networks that boost digital and sustainable development of Africa.

The 800G links were set up, with single fiber capacity of 48Tbps, to connect data centers in Johannesburg, Durban and Cape Town. This domestic backbone will meet MTN’s growing capacity requirements for its cloud-based business services, enhanced home broadband, and wireless networks. It also delivers optimal cost per bit and improved energy efficiency. As a result, MTN SA becomes the leading company with this innovative transport technology. This achievement is another important milestone to fulfill its promise to deliver best-in-class, energy-efficient and robust networks in Africa.

MTN SA has utilized Huawei’s leading optical transport solutions, including 400G/800G per channel, Optical Cross-Connect (OXC), and Automatically Switched Optical Network (ASON). The OXC solution has been deployed in the backbone nodes, not only to meet long-term capacity and degree-expansion requirements, but also improve the network energy efficiency by reducing power consumption by 60% compared to conventional ROADM technology. ASON solution delivers the reliability, the flexibility, and robustness that next generation optical transport requires, while enabling service differentiation and reducing operations and maintenance costs.

Takalani Ligudu, Senior Specialist in Core Fibre and Transmission at MTN SA, said:“The 800G, OXC and ASON scale deployment with Huawei is a result of MTN’s clear vision to lead the delivery of a bold new digital world to customers. MTN is proud on having one of the world’s advanced networks and using industry leading technologies to deliver superior network services for our customers across South Africa.”

Victor Zhou, president of optical transmission domain at Huawei, pointed out: “It is a great honor to work with MTN SA to bring the leading and green optical technologies into South Africa, building advanced optical network for digital development.