Key Findings
NTT, in collaboration with Chunghwa Telecom, a leading Taiwanese telecommunications carrier, has successfully constructed the ‘world’s first international All-Photonics Network’ connecting Japan and Taiwan. This innovative network has demonstrated the capability to provide a 100 Gbps optical path over a long distance of approximately 3,000 km with an ultra-low one-way latency of just about 17 milliseconds. This achievement represents concrete progress in NTT’s IOWN (Innovative Optical and Wireless Network) concept, which aims to minimize electrical-to-optical signal conversion.
Technical / Clinical Details
The international All-Photonics Network is built upon ‘all-photonics’ technology, which maintains optical signals throughout the transmission path, minimizing conversion to electrical signals. This dramatically reduces latency and power loss typically associated with electrical-optical conversions in traditional networks. Specifically, for the 3,000 km link between Japan and Taiwan, data transmission latency is suppressed to 17 milliseconds one-way, a groundbreaking low-latency performance for international communications. The 100 Gbps optical path provided more than adequately meets current data communication needs and lays the groundwork for future high-capacity communication. NTT has set an ambitious goal of achieving 100 times greater power efficiency with this technology compared to current networks.
Background & Context
The global digital economy’s expansion, particularly driven by AI, IoT, and cloud services, demands communication networks with higher capacity, lower latency, and more efficient data transmission capabilities. Traditional electrical communication infrastructures have faced fundamental physical and technical limitations in meeting these demands. The IOWN concept is NTT’s vision for a next-generation network, proposing to overcome information transmission bottlenecks by thoroughly leveraging optical technologies. The establishment of this international APN between Japan and Taiwan is a critical demonstration that the IOWN concept is viable on an international scale, contributing to enhanced digital connectivity in the Asia-Pacific region. This technology also facilitates high-speed inter-data center collaboration, robust communication during disasters, and the creation of new international cooperation models.
Strategic Significance & Outlook
The success of the international All-Photonics Network by NTT and Chunghwa Telecom will significantly influence global communication infrastructure development. This technology has the potential to accelerate the deployment of ultra-low latency, high-capacity networks not only in Asia but also on a global scale. In the future, further advancements in this all-photonics technology are expected to enable international optical paths of several hundred Gbps to Tbps, with even lower power consumption. This will bring closer a future where highly real-time applications such as remote medicine, autonomous driving, and the metaverse can be seamlessly provided across geographical boundaries. NTT is committed to further evolving this technology to bridge the global digital divide and contribute to a sustainable society.
Source: https://en.bloguru.com/ken/569294/the-future-of-data-transfer-is-light
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