Nokia wins exclusive deal for Swisscom’s optical transport network

The upgraded optical transport network should be easier to scale, enabling faster services delivery and innovation.

Swisscom has chosen Nokia to update its infrastructure to become a fully automated, high capacity optical transport network.

Nokia is the sole supplier to build the end-to-end wavelength division multiplexing/optical transport network (WDM/OTN) nationwide. It is intended to meet the surging demand for bandwidth driven by the increase in remote working and learning, video streaming, gaming and cloud computing.

Transport all traffic

The modernised optical network will transport all of Swisscom’s fixed and wireless traffic from customer-provided equipment to metro access to the backbone, and will support client services from 1G to 400G.

This requires a scalable and upgraded infrastructure that can improve capacity, performance and resilience.

The plan is that Swisscom will benefit from reduced operating expenses and optimised capital expenditures due to simplified, streamlined end-to-end service operations, that make more efficient use of network resources through automation.
 
Nokia’s broad portfolio of optical networking hardware, software and professional services will be applied. This includes Nokia WaveFabric, based on the 1830 family of WDM/OTN platforms powered by the Nokia PSE-V coherent digital signal processor (DSP), and the Nokia WaveSuite portfolio of networking applications for network commissioning, service enablement, and network health and analytics.

Nokia’s WavePrime Digital Twin as a Service will also be used to provide a cloud-hosted digital simulation of the physical network.

Network expansion strategy

Christoph Aeschlimann, CIO and CTO, Swisscom, said, “Swisscom has set out its network expansion strategy [to] the end of 2025, which is to equip the network for the new decade.

“This strategic partnership with Nokia highlights Swisscom’s commitment to delivering a high capacity, fully automated nationwide optical backbone for Switzerland.

“This next-generation transport network can quickly adapt to changes and provide superior services and connectivity experiences to our customers. Nokia has proven to be a trusted partner and has been the preferred choice to transform our optical network.”