Chile Entel is building the world's first 800G mesh backbone network, entering the F5.5G Era

[Santiago, Chile, 2024] Chile's leading telecom operator Entel recently announced that it will use Huawei's most advanced technologies, such as Super 800G, Super C+L, and OXC to build the world's first 800G mesh backbone network. This network will significantly improve the architecture, experience, and efficiency, helping Entel accelerate the development of 5G and F5G services.

Entel is the largest mobile operator in Chile and is developing fixed broadband and enterprise services. Its FTTH subscribers have increased by four times in the past three years, bringing an annual network traffic growth of over 40%. At the same time, it is one the largest cloud service providers in Chile. As a member of PIT Chile, it provides cloud services for more than 500 large enterprise customers. The east-west traffic between data centers increases rapidly, posing great challenges to Entel's backbone network architecture.

To cope with the ever-changing service requirements, Chile Entel will use Huawei's latest 800G DC-centric backbone network solution to upgrade the backbone network covering the whole country.

First, in terms of network architecture, Chile Entel changed the traditional metro and backbone network separate construction mode. The backbone networks of 13 regions and the metro network in Santiago were integrated into one flattened and meshed OTN backbone network.

By introducing end-to-end OXC all-optical switching, one subrack in the traditional solution is replaced by one board, saving the equipment room space by 90% and power consumption by 40% for core nodes. In addition, all-optical one-hop direct connections between users and DCs and between DCs will be implemented, building a 1 ms intra-city and 5-18 ms inter-city low latency circle, enabling low latency and ubiquitous connections for thousands of industries.

Second, Entel uses Huawei's Super 800G and Super C+L technologies to upgrade the transmission capacity of the backbone and metro network, reducing the cost per bit by more than 30% and providing a capacity of nearly 100 Tbit/s per fiber, meeting the requirements for massive data traffic in the future.

Chile has a long and narrow land area, with a length of more than 4300 km from north to south. Huawei Super 800G uses industry-leading transmission algorithms and optical components and supports 400G/800G programmable transmission. The transmission distance without regeneration, only including intermediate amplifiers, can reach 6000 km for 400G and 2000 km for 800G using appropriate optical fibers like G654 E. Huawei Super C+L adds new elements to the traditional erbium-doped fiber amplifiers and expands the available spectrum to 12 THz.

Finally, Entel will be adopting innovative software, such as Huawei C+L ASON and iMaster NCE T-AUTO, to greatly improve network reliability and usability.

Huawei C+L ASON uses the innovative fast rerouting algorithm and the millisecond-level SRS (fiber Raman effect) automatic compensation technology. It will be the first in the industry to restore C+L full-band wavelength services in seconds after fiber broken, improving the network availability to 99.999%. Huawei iMaster NCE T-AUTO provides the online service planning capability, shortening the service TTM from weeks to hours. Monitors the network health status in real time, avoiding risks such as fiber cuts and node faults in advance, and ensuring long-term stable service running.

"Entel is proud to have one of the most advanced networks in the world, using industry-leading technologies to provide premium network services to Chilean customers," said Luis Uribe , Chief Technology Officer at Entel Chile, "By deploying innovative technologies such as 800G and high-performance 400G in the network, we can easily cope with rapidly growing traffic requirements. In the future, Entel will continue to lead the industry in new technologies."

Victor Zhou, President of Huawei's Transport Network Domain, said, "We are pleased to cooperate with Entel to launch the optimal solution based on F5.5G to build ultra-broadband, simplified, and intelligent networks, and help Entel achieve business success."

About Entel

Entel is a company with 60 years of experience, a technology and telecommunications leader with operations in Chile and Peru, countries where it has more than 20 million mobile subscribers. The company offers mobile and fixed connectivity services, as well as a wide range of IT and digital services for the individual, business and large corporation segments, in addition to wholesale and call center services. In each of its business lines, products and services, it delivers simple, close and surprising experiences, supported by a robust, state-of-the-art infrastructure, and a strong brand image and customer service.