Optical Metro/Aggregation Networks to Support Future Services over 5G
Organizers: Albert Rafel, BT Technology, UK; Joerg-Peter Elbers, ADVA Optical Networking, Germany; Emilio Riccardi, Telecom Italia Mobile, Italy
5G promises to revolutionize society and industry by enabling a wide range of services, like enhanced Mobile Broad-Band (eMBB), Ultra-Reliable Low Latency Communications (URLLC) and massive Machine-Type Communications (mMTC), with very different and stringent requirements. 5G Transport will require large amounts of fiber deployments, but while a lot of focus is being given to fiber access networks, the optical metro/aggregation network has not yet received much attention.
Transport optical networks are traditionally considered a collection of big pipes, seen as an existing commodity, on top of which to add higher layer network resources and intelligence supporting the services. Considerable effort is devoted by both the research community and industry to the design and deployment of more efficient, more cost-effective, greener and more sustainable, and autonomic metro/aggregation networks, which are expected to complement 5G mobile networks supporting vertical services.
Furthermore, the expected widespread use of Edge Computing and Cell Site Gate-Way Nodes will blur the traditional strong separation between mobile, access, and metro/aggregation networks, which opens the possibility for beneficial technology cooperation. However, how these technological advancements in all network layers of the access/metro/aggregation domains, as well as in the control plane, can be pieced together to give a clear and unified vision of the 5G ecosystem, is still largely a subject of debate. This summit will address the issue of whether and how the massive deployment of vertical services over 5G will change the traditional approach to building optical network infrastructures.
In particular, the summit will open a discussion on the following questions:
- What are the network requirements emerging from 5G services?
- What does a future-proof access/metro/aggregation network architecture look like?
- How can such architecture be implemented?
The session will be divided into two parts. In the first part, invited speakers will present their views on network (r)evolution. In the second part, different strategies leading to more efficient, more cost-effective, and more sustainable networks will be debated in a panel discussion.