5 December 2014

Network Rail deploys Infinera Intelligent Transport Network across UK

In partnership with digital communications company Telefónica UK, Infinera Corp of Sunnyvale, CA, USA, a vertically integrated manufacturer of digital optical network systems incorporating its own indium phosphide-based photonic integrated circuits (PICs), has announced the deployment of the Infinera DTN-X packet optical transport networking platform across the railway infrastructure of Network Rail (which owns, manages and develops Britain’s railway), delivering a communications network that is underpinning Network Rail’s operations transformation.

Network Rail Telecom (NRT) is Network Rail’s national telecoms asset management and service provision function. NRT manages over 16,000km of fiber-optic cable extending to the furthest reaches of the rail network in England, Wales and Scotland, delivering mission-critical telecoms systems, managed services, and solutions to Great Britain’s railway.

NRT’s deployment of the DTN-X platform, featuring what is claimed to be the industry’s only commercially available 500Gb/s super-channel solution, is designed to support future terabit super-channels without requiring new chassis. The deployment features Infinera’s unique Instant Bandwidth technology, enabling NRT to deploy capacity with the click of a mouse, to rapidly meet customer service demands for high-capacity, low-latency services. The DTN-X is designed to scale in the future to support up to 12Tb/s of integrated OTN switching as well as Fast Shared Mesh Protection to provide rapid service protection even in the face of multiple fiber cuts.

“We deployed Infinera’s solutions to enable a railway fit for the future, providing improved network reliability, scalability and safety for our teams,” says Craig Ellis, NRT’s head of Technology & Engineering. “For railways, it’s about safety and performance through reliable network infrastructure and leading-edge network management systems,” he adds. “Remote configurability of bandwidth is also important since the majority of our nodes are at the railway track and accessing these sites is not as easy as accessing a traditional telco node. The Infinera Intelligent Transport Network provides a solution that is highly reliable through its use of photonic integrated circuits, and the software-driven management system enables remote diagnostics and turn up of bandwidth, ideal for this type of network,” Ellis comments.

“The partnership with Infinera in deploying this network to scale to terabits in the future supports all our future requirements in the UK with bandwidth deployed quickly and efficiently, meeting the increasing demands of the railway,” says NRT director Andy Hudson. “Deploying a vendor with Infinera’s capability is key to enabling a safer, smarter and more cost-effective telecoms platform fit for a better railway,” he adds.

“Network Rail's selection of an Infinera Intelligent Transport Network for a cutting-edge optical network highlights the value of our solutions to provide reliability for a mission critical network that isn’t easily accessible at all times,” says Chris Champion, Infinera’s senior VP, EMEA sales. “The Infinera Intelligent Transport Network enables network operators to automate, converge and simplify their optical transport networks to reliably deliver advanced services to their customers.”

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