BT begins next-gen fibre optic trial
Details
Joseph O'Halloran
| 02 June 2021
Just as its Openreach broadband provision division is ramping up the extent of its fibre network to deliver gigabit broadband across the country, UK telco BT has begun research exploring how the capabilities of optical fibre can be enhanced with the potential to reduce signal delay by up to 50%.
openreach engineer 30Dec2020
The research is centred on what is known as hollow core fibre. This new type of network cable has an air-filled centre that runs the entire length of the cable with an outer ring of glass, to guide the laser beam whilst maintaining the signal speed at what BT says is very close to the ultimate speed of light. BT telco believes that the reduction in the delay of the light provided by hollow core fibre would enable a variety of benefits, from high frequency trading to lowering mobile network costs.

The trials at the BT Labs research and engineering campus in Adastral Park involve not only the telco’s R&D team but also technology and expertise from hollow core optical fibre technology company Lumenisity and Open Radio Access Network (Open RAN) mobile comms solutions vendor Mavenir. The partners will use a 10-kilometre-long hollow core cable provided by Lumenisity to demonstrate the use of the next-gen fibre in a variety of use cases, including potential benefits for 5G networks as well as fixed broadband services.

For example, working with Mavenir, BT says that it has shown that using hollow core fibre can increase the distance between street antennas and the back-end processing in exchanges while using hollow core in the RAN element of mobile networks could reduce mobile network costs by allowing more 5G antennas to be served from one exchange or cabinet. Streaming video is another use case cited by BT that could see benefit from the new fibre.

“We’re excited to begin trialling hollow core fibre and to discover the potential opportunities and benefits of deploying this technology in certain scenarios,” remarked Professor Andrew Lord, BT’s head of optical network research. “This new type of fibre cable could play an important role in the future of the world’s communications infrastructure, heralding a step-change in capability and speed, to keep up with the demands for high-speed, low latency communications driven by 5G networks, streaming and more.”