Connect with ITU standards experts at OFC

The upcoming OFC conference in San Diego, 24-28 March, will feature expert talks on the latest broadband standards from the International Telecommunication Union (ITU).

In line with the conference’s focus on optical networking, ITU’s OFC presentations will focus on standards from ITU-T Study Group 15 – the standardization expert group on networks, technologies and infrastructures for transport, access and home.

Meet the group’s experts at the ITU booth (#5226), a tutorial on “Tight Sync in Precision Time Protocol” on 26 March, and the “ITU-T Study Group 15 – Standards Updates” session on 27 March.

Time synch and clock performance

Accurate time synchronization is more important than ever in 5G and critical to demanding use cases such as time-sensitive networking for automated vehicles or controlling robots in smart factories.

The Tight Sync tutorial at OFC on 26 March will explore challenges in distributing accurate timing, including the impact on performance from some optical technologies and options to verify the performance of optical modules.

The tutorial will also highlight solutions provided by ITU standards to address these challenges. The focus will be on time errors that could be introduced by the functions that support optical interfaces using modulation formats such as PAM4 in 5G fronthaul or data centres.

Methods to test the timing accuracy achieved by these optical interfaces will be on show at the ITU booth (#5226) in a live demo from ITU member Calnex.

Flexible optical transport

ITU’s latest standards for the Flexible Optical Transport Network (FlexO) provide for data transmission at rates up to 800 gigabits per second (Gbit/s). New features also include regeneration to extend FlexO’s reach and a new class of Ethernet-optimized FlexO interfaces.

The Standards Updates session at OFC on 27 March will detail the latest updates to ITU’s suite of FlexO standards and the merits of the suite’s new structure. It will also offer insight on associated ITU collaboration with other standards bodies and multi-source agreements.

There will be a live demo of FlexO in the OIF booth (#1323).

FlexO standards will also be discussed in depth as part of short course #328 on “Standards for High-Speed Optical Networking” on 24 March.

Fibre to the home and in the home

Millions of homes and businesses access global networks through the cost-efficient Passive Optical Network (PON) technologies standardized by ITU. The latest generation, known as “Higher Speed PON”, provides for speeds of 50 Gbit/s per wavelength, up from the 10 Gbit/s of its predecessors.

The Standard Updates session will explore the state of the art in fibre to the home and potential future directions. The session will also share insight on the progress of ITU standardization work on in-home fibre networks.