CASE STUDY MARKET: Telecom operator REGION: CHINA COMPANY: CHina Unicom CHINA UNICOM DEPLOYS HIGH-SPEED AGILE OPTICAL NETWORK 40G TODAY – 100G READY!

China United Network Communications Group Co., Ltd (“China Unicom”) was established in 2009 as a result of the merger of former China Netcom and former China Unicom. At present, the Company is engaged in GSM and WCDMA cellular business in thirty-one provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions in China, the provision of fixed-line voice, broadband and other Internet-related services, information and communications technology services, business and data communications services, and other related telecommunication value- added businesses.

As of the end of December 2012, the total subscribers of the Company’s mobile, local telephone and broadband businesses reached 395 million. China Unicom is among the world’s Top 500 companies in terms of revenue, and ranked in the top of the world’s leading telecom operators in terms of its customer base and market capitalization of its listed company. It is the only Chinese Telecom operator listed on the stock exchanges in New York, Hong Kong, and Shanghai. Challenges • Increase the number of homes with access to broadband services • Increase fiber-to-the-home network coverage • Propel China’s average broadband bandwidth capacity in urban regions to 20 Mbps by 2015 • Increase China Unicom’s mobile subscriber base, from 40 Million in 2011 to 76 Million in 2012 • Provide a backbone network infrastructure having the capacity and efficiencies in both fixed and mobile broadband services • Enable future scaling to meet growth in subscriber bandwidth consumption Solutions • Alcatel-Lucent’s 1830 Photonic Service Switch (PSS) for five new Support for this growth — in both national backbone networks THE CHALLENGES fixed and mobile broadband sub- Bandwidth demand is driven by data and • Alcatel-Lucent’s 40G coherent scribers, as well as with enterprise video traffic. After continuous investment technology with graceful evolution services — requires a backbone network and growth of its mobile and fixed-line to 100G wavelength capacity infrastructure having the capacity and broadband subscriber base, China Unicom • Alcatel-Lucent’s 1830 PSS efficiencies enabled by Alcatel-Lucent’s has become the major IP service provider Agile Optical Networking solutions. converged WDM/OTN platform in China. Traffic granularity in China for cost-effective and efficient Unicom’s transport network must increase grooming of lower bit rate into high due to high speed IP router interconnection, THE SOLUTION capacity 40G coherent wavelengths and the unrelenting demand of 40 Gb/s 40 Gbps now; 100 Gbps-ready strategy. Benefits trunks. In 2012, the granularity of IP To support unrelenting traffic growth router interconnection had been mainly with their subscriber base, China • Optimized transport of various 10 Gb/s and 40 Gb/s, but this is shifting Unicom has selected Alcatel-Lucent’s services over a common OTN and to be predominately 40 Gb/s with an 1830 Photonic Service Switch (PSS) for ROADM network through use of evolution to 100 Gb/s soon anticipated. five new national backbone networks the Multi-Layer Planning tool with a total transmission distance of • High performance, high bandwidth The “Broadband China” project recently 5,000 km covering all the eastern area transmission with coherent announced by the Chinese Ministry of of China including Beijing, Shanghai, wavelengths Industry and Information Technology is Guangdong, Zhejiang, Fujian, Jiangsu etc.. intended to drive a significant increase • Real time wavelength service in the number of homes with broadband The 1830 PSS nodes will initially be monitoring through Wavelength access — to more than 70% of the coun- equipped with Alcatel-Lucent’s 40G Tracker try’s Internet users by the end of 2013. coherent technology that will ensure • Maximum wavelength utiliza- This includes increases to fiber-to-the- graceful upgrade to 100G in order tion and greater flexibility with home coverage by more than 35 million to enable future scaling to meet OTN sub-lambda grooming and households. Broadband China also seeks subscriber bandwidth growth. Use of switching to propel China’s average broadband Alcatel-Lucent’s BPSK-based 40 Gbps coherent technology provides the • Reliable end-to-end solution bandwidth capacity in urban regions to 20 Mbps by 2015, with 250 million users. advantage of unimpeded mixing of 40G with combined WDM and OTN and 100G WDM channels as needed. GMPLS-based protection schemes In addition to supporting this fixed • Agile Multi-Degree ROADM broadband service expansion, China The project includes Alcatel-Lucent architecture controlled via Unicom is also significantly increas- 1830 PSS converged WDM/OTN platform management system ing its mobile subscriber base, from for supporting seamless combination 40M in 2011 to 76M in 2012. of WDM and OTN capabilities. The five

China Unicom Alcatel-Lucent CASE STUDY 2 national backbone networks based on support of multiple network layers, enables service-aware wavelength Alcatel-Lucent’s WDM and OTN technol- services, and protocols. Best-in-class management with easy-to-use graphical ogy will include no less than five hundred managed photonics, multilayer switching displays for quick troubleshooting and 40 Gbps coherent transponders. and intelligence in a proven purpose- fault isolation, and saves on specialized built platform enables China Unicom to training and costly optical test equipment. Use of coherent technology for 40 Gbps realize the full potential of their optical as well as for 100 Gbps enables much network in the cloud services era. This innovation employs a unique greater reach while dramatically reducing management signal on each wavelength the need for regeneration and at the same The 1830 PSS platform’s integrated allowing it to be identified and monitored time eliminates the need for Dispersion- Wavelength Tracker provides photonic at any point throughout the network, Compensation Modules (DCMs). layer OAM and service assurance without termination or regeneration. This which proved to be a critical solution action provides operators an integrated differentiator for China Unicom. view of all wavelengths at different WHY ALCATEL-LUCENT? Wavelength Tracker automatically points across the network, allowing these Alcatel-Lucent’s Agile Optical Networking monitors and adjusts wavelengths and wavelengths to traverse the network provided by the 1830 Photonic Service power levels at any point in the network, while being traced, to track the behavior Switch (PSS) enables a scalable, versa- without requiring manual measurement of each wavelength, isolate faults, monitor tile, and dynamic solution. Real-time using Optical Spectrum Analyzers (OSA). performance and correlate alarms. re-configurability reduces capital and operating expenses through improved Wavelength Tracker’s optical layer man- Wavelength Tracker optical layer efficiency while accelerating time-to- agement delivers wavelength path tracing management enables the delivery of revenue through faster provisioning of and monitoring capabilities and provides true optical SLAs, reduces network the turn-up and tear-down of wavelength proactive service assurance at low operational costs and makes optical and sub-wavelength services. Agile operational costs. Optical performance networks simpler to manage. Optical Networking is achieved through monitoring through Wavelength Tracker

Figure 1. Alcatel-Lucent Optical Networks benefits

HIGH SPEED CONVERGENCE Coherent 100G SD-FEC wavelengths enable high performance high bandwidth Multi-Layer Planning transmission tool optimizes the transport of various services over a common electrical/optical network

OTN sub-lambda AGILE grooming for OPTICAL maximum wavelength utilization and SUB-λ NETWORK greater flexibility GROOMING

Multi-Degree ROADM reconfigurable Combining architecture via WDM and OTN FLEXIBILITY management GMPLS-based system protection for a reliable end-to-end solution RELIABILITY AND PROTECTION

China Unicom Alcatel-Lucent CASE STUDY 3 BENEFITS and FEATURES increased network intelligence. The The 1830 PSS portfolio provides terabit T/ROADM platform supports a wide OTN switching and photonics capacities. The Alcatel-Lucent 1830 Photonic Service range of applications and services such The 400G Photonic Service Engine Switch (PSS) supports next-generation as Carrier Ethernet, mobile backhaul enables high-performance 100G and an WDM multiservice transport from access and multicast video. With 1830 PSS evolutionary path to 400G transport. to core. The scalable switch drives lower platforms ranging in size from compact Leveraging an intelligent control plane TCO and extends network life cycles. access to converged Optical Transport and integrated data, management and The 1830 PSS transforms traditional Network (OTN)/WDM core, operators control planes, the 1830 PSS simplifies WDM into a flexible transport layer with can optimize multiservice networks to network management for maximum managed agile photonics, multilayer meet unpredictable traffic demands. multilayer performance and efficiency. switching and services, in addition to

Minimizes TCO by leveraging a • Unconstrained service grooming at versatile platform suited for a wide wavelength, port and sub-port levels range of transport applications • Optical transport for any application, fiber type and reach • Enhanced packet optical features: ODUflex, ODU4, Carrier Ethernet, in-flight encrypted wavelengths

Maximizes ROI with integrated • 8.8 Tb/s at 100G with a photonic, OTN and packet non-disruptive path to 400G networking technologies • Service-agnostic matrix powered by a 1 Tbps OTN chip • Traffic-specific service grooming at the most economical layer • Integrated Packet Transport for efficient, versatile and reliable Layer 2 transport

Maximizes revenue opportunities • Multilayer network planning, control by meeting unpredictable traffic and photonic service management dynamics with agility using Wavelength Tracker • Tiered resiliency levels for value- based SLAs • CDC-F ROADM with OTN switching in a single integrated platform • GMPLS-based control plane for automated multilayer restoration and protection schemes

Alcatel-Lucent 1830 PSS converged WDM/OTN platform

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