Empowering True with Ultra-High Speed Optical Transport Networks

Founded by Charoen Pokphand Group in 1990, True provides cellular under TrueMobile, fixed-line phone under TrueOnline, and Pay TV services under TrueVision. True is the largest full-service operator and the second largest mobile operator in Thailand. It is also the largest broadband provider in Bangkok. Since 2017, True has been heavily promoting FTTx to support Thailand to step into Industry 4.0.

Challenges and Requirements of True Backbone Networks

With the popularity of 4K UHD video, the introduction of new services like 8K, VR, and AR, and the evolution from 4G to 5G, the access rate per unit area will increase by 1,000 times, and the granularity of government and enterprise private line services is moving to GE and even higher. The rapid growth of all these services brings about huge bandwidth increases and challenges the capacity and reliability of networks. 
100G DWDM backbone networks have been widely deployed all over the world, and will evolve into 200 Gbps, 400 Gbps, and even 1 Tbps systems in the future. In an effort to prepare for 5G, big data, big video and also the growing competition, True was in urgent need to introduce new technologies and solutions to upgrade its 10G/100G backbone DWDM systems for higher capacity and performance. The existing backbone DWDM networks after almost 10 years of operation had complex networking environment, and it was risky and highly difficult to reconstruct them. In addition, frequent fiber cuts due to weather made network maintenance difficult. Targeting these problems, True decided to build a new dual-plane backbone network with increased capacity and performance as well as improved reliability and maintenance.

ZTE Helps True Build Backbone DWDM Networks

In August 2016, True announced an open tender for its beyond-100G backbone network project, which attracted four mainstream optical transport equipment providers. After a four-month competition, ZTE, with its industry-leading solutions and products, won the bid for three out of the four networks in the project: Northeast region (100G), East region (200G), and Central West region (200G).
For this project, ZTE adopted the 100G and beyond-100G WASON solution, PM-QPSK/PM-16QAM modulation and coherent reception technology, third-generation SD-FEC, CD-F ROADM and high-performance OTDR&GIS Map to build quality backbone DWDM networks for True and help it adapt to future service development and follow-up evolution. 

Ultra-High Capacity  

ZTE used advanced 200G PM-16QAM modulation, CD-F ROADM (with CDC-F ROADM to come), and high performance WSS pass-through solution to build the world’s first backbone DWDM network with 37.5-GHz spacing in the East and Central West regions. It supports 53 400G wavelengths or 106 200G wavelengths, and the system capacity can reach up to 21.2 Tbps, an increase of 25% over networks with 50-GHz spacing.
While 200G 16QAM ensures increased spectral efficiency, ZTE’s outstanding third-generation SD-FEC and 37.5 GHz WSS pass-through solution enhance the performance of 200G transport to the maximum degree. More routes are available for selection without any REGEN, which is very important in the deployment of intelligent WASON. ZTE has both ensured the network reliability and saved costs for True.

High Reliability 

ZTE introduced WASON technology in those three networks in the project. This, when coupled with full mesh, makes optical transport more intelligent. Intelligent switching mechanisms can flexibly respond to various network emergencies to effectively reduce the time of service interruptions due to fiber cuts, while speeding up service deployment, increasing service survivability and improving network resource usage and scheduling efficiency

Simplified O&M 

The OTDR&GIS Map and automatic power optimization (APO) functions help True simplify O&M, improve O&M efficiency, and reduce OPEX. The high-performance embedded OTDR&GIS Map function enables the real-time monitoring of the fiber parameters and fault points. In the event of a failure, this function through coordinating with ZTE’s resource management software QRun can identify failure locations on a GIS map, and inform maintenance staff of this. Network maintainability is increased dramatically, and failure recovery time is reduced greatly. In addition, the OMS-layer APO, OCH-layer APO, and APR functions increase the network reliability and security while reducing the O&M complexity.
The newly-built 100G and 200G DWDM backbone networks allow True to have much higher capacity, and advanced technologies are used for simplified O&M and improved O&M efficiency, supporting True’s service growth in areas of 3G/LTE, fixed line and broadband.