NGON & 5G Transport is promoted as the only optics-focused event in the industry, bringing together the entire supply chain to show the perspective of every player on the market. In my judgement, this telecom conference indeed boasts the highest concentration of optical network experts per square meter compared to all others. Despite the attendee count being in the hundreds rather than thousands, the potential for engaging in discussions and fruitful business opportunities is highly promising.
Three intense days of NGON & 5G (May 30-June 1 at Center Expo Congress Mandelieu-La Napoule) were filled with workshops, lectures, and discussion panels. Additionally, the coordinator of the event organized discussions in the form of "round tables", where operators and representatives of solution providers, could talk behind closed doors.
I had the opportunity to participate in a meeting dedicated to IP-over-DWDM technology. An interesting conclusion from this discussion is that no one today denies the technology and its benefits anymore, and the general discourse was directed at specific use-cases, the issue of management, and automation.
Day one, the so-called Pre-Conference, was dedicated to the somewhat distant future, namely topics that organizations such as OIF (Optical Internetworking Forum) and ETSI (European Telecommunications Standards Institute) are working on today, e.g., 800G and SDN transport standardization for transport networks.
Considerable attention was also paid to building the F5G (Fifth Generation Fixed Network), especially its energy-saving aspects. This new generation of fixed networks is needed to support the growing 5G wireless network and to support the increasing number of cloud services that require high bandwidth and/or minimal latency.
Days two and three of the conference were a bit more up-close. The discussion considered technologies that will be implemented in a year or two. The topics can be divided with regard to the areas of the network in which they are to be installed. Thus, within the access network, two technologies were mainly considered: coherent QSFP28 optics, enable building cost-effective 100Gbps connections, and coherent technology with bandwidth sharing.
In the case of aggregation and metro networks, applications using IP-over-DWDM were widely discussed, considering various aspects, from the technology itself and its capabilities, to where it can be implemented, and how to manage and automate the network.
Salumanus sees NGON & 5G Transport as a gathering place for operators, both foreign and local. Being able to engage in face-to-face conversations within this intimate circle and discuss ongoing challenges is an invaluable aspect of this conference.
