‘More bandwidth needed for fast-evolving networks’

The International Telecommunications Union (ITU) has said that demand for higher-capacity networks keeps rising with no end in sight.
Specifically, ITU, which disclosed this, noted that as people communicate in high-definition video and gain ever more immersive experiences with virtual reality and cloud gaming, the need for more bandwidth keeps growing, adding that machines, too, rely on high-speed, low-latency connectivity, especially with increasingly automated industrial processes.

It stressed that more bandwidth is also required for new-generation networks, especially as the globe moves in the direction of 5G, the Fourth Industrial Revolution, among others.
ITU noted that the capabilities widely enjoyed today, along with those envisioned for the future, all depend on technical standards developed by it and its standardisation arm, known as ITU-T.

Indeed, ITU-T Study Group 15 defines the “networks, technologies and infrastructures for transport, access, and home.”

According to the group, the latest standards in the access arena provide for speeds up to 8 gigabits per second (Gbit/s) over traditional telephone wires and 50 Gbit/s per wavelength for fibre to the home.

Study Group 15 standards also define the extremely high capacity ‘backbone’ transport networks that line modern cities and traverse the world’s oceans.

Group’s new Chairman, Glenn Parsons from Ericsson, explained: “Between cellular towers or between network operators, all of these connections are provided with fibre and copper transport mechanisms and protocols that we define in study

“Our standards provide the framing and rates for fibre networks, and we’re looking at moving this towards multi-Terabit for the long haul.”

Study Group 15 introduced wavelength-division multiplexing, which puts multiple signals simultaneously onto a single fibre cable. It now aims to lay the foundations for the cost-effective global rollout of space-division multiplexing, which boosts optical data transmission with multiple channels.

Promising applications include submarine telecoms, another area where standards from Study Group 15 are key. “We’re looking at wavelength-division multiplexing, a common mechanism to increase the capacity on fibre, and evolving that towards space-division multiplexing.”

While always working to enable faster networking speeds, the group is focused on lower latency. “Lower latency is required for a lot of applications that we’re now seeing in the market, from 5G cellular to industrial automation,” said Parsons.

Starting in 2018, the study group focused on meeting the demands of emerging 5G mobile services on transport networks. This is an area where ITU standardisation (ITU-T) and radiocommunication (ITU-R) work complement each other closely.

“Wireless is, of course, the responsibility of ITU-R, but we are fundamental to 5G networks because we provide the transport to connect all the towers,” explained Parsons.

ITU-T Study Group 15 provides transport networks with the necessary capacity and management-control functions to support 5G. Parsons also emphasised the importance of meeting new requirements for synchronisation and mobile fronthaul.

“We have synchronization activities that support packet timing,” he says, referring to multiple ITU standards describing network synchronization for both frequency and precision time. Timing has grown in importance immeasurably with advances through 4G and 5G and is expected to become even more important in the future. “Fronthaul” refers to the new latency and synchronization demands that 5G places on mobile networks.

“From a 5G perspective, backhaul is the more generalized higher bandwidth, but it’s that fronthaul – the connection directly from the antennas on the tower down to the baseband unit – that requires the lower-latency, higher bandwidth facilities that we’re looking to provide with the physical fibre technologies in Study Group 15.”