H-OTN: Industry's First Optical Communication Product to Support Native Hard Pipes

Huawei has officially unveiled OptiXtrans EH6600, an exciting new series of Hybrid OTN (H-OTN) devices and the industry's first optical communication product to support native hard pipes (NHPs).

As industry digitalization gathers pace, and the development of efficient and unmanned service operations becomes more widespread, many networks that require independent O&M — such as video networks and Internet of Things (IoT) — have started to emerge. This explosion of new technologies has resulted in multiple networks becoming overlaid throughout the past decade, posing great challenges to network O&M. Consequently, a unified physical network that converges various networks is now required.

As the industry's first optical communication product to integrate hard pipes, Huawei's H-OTN breaks down the barriers between access networks and WANs. It builds a unified, secure, and reliable communication network by converging networks for various industries such as electric power and transportation. On this network, services are physically isolated for transmission, empowering in-depth digitalization.

H-OTN adopts the core technology of third-generation hard pipes — optical service units (OSUs) — and an innovative point-to-multipoint (P2MP) OTN architecture, thereby introducing the following benefits:

1. High security: H-OTN opts for cutting-edge OSU over PON technology to implement E2E hard pipes that pass through access networks and WANs, which is a first for the industry. These hard pipes provide E2E physical isolation for services, ensuring absolute security of core services.
2. Low latency: H-OTN simplifies and converges protocols, reducing latency by over 60%.
3. Simplified O&M: H-OTN integrates OTN and OLT device capabilities for the first time. As a result, a single NMS can be used to centrally manage access networks and WANs, boosting O&M efficiency by 50%.