Mexican ISP Marcatel and Huawei Build a Future-oriented DCI Network

Marcatel COM, SA de C.V. (Marcatel) is a Mexican Internet Service Provider (ISP) founded in 1994 in Monterrey, providing telecom services in over 100 countries. Through its 4600 km of optical fiber in Mexico and other countries, Marcatel offers diverse services including data and cloud, Internet, contact centers, telephony, and video transmission, as well as national and international long distance calls.

Traffic Rockets During the COVID-19 Crisis, Driving the Need for DCI Reconstruction

Marcatel has a backbone Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) network for bandwidth leasing in Mexico that stretches from south to north, covering key cities like Queretaro, Mexico City, and Monterrey. The most important regional data centers are connected, serving end users such as governments, enterprises, large Over-The-Top (OTT) media companies, as well as ISPs and Communication Service Providers (CSPs).

With big data becoming more widespread, Marcatel was experiencing a greater surge in traffic as data center centralization, High-Definition (HD) video services, and enterprise cloudification strained legacy Data Center Interconnect (DCI) networks. COVID-19 added even more pressure to such networks as home Internet traffic surged with people learning, working, and shopping from home during lockdown. In order to ensure fiber networks could reach their full potential, Marcatel needed to address a range of issues:

1.The legacy DCI development mode consumed substantial fiber resources and occupied a large amount of equipment room space, with fiber and cabinet leasing becoming increasingly more expensive.

2.DCI deployment is the most challenging and slowest part of data center expansion, as such proving a bottleneck for service provisioning.

3.Traditional Operations and Maintenance (O&M) is complex and requires a high level of skill. Furthermore, passive O&M cannot meet the requirements of the cloud era.

Therefore, Marcatel's biggest challenge was to quickly build a flexible and intelligent DCI network while optimizing Capital Expenditure (CAPEX).

Huawei's Ultra-broadband, Simplified, and Intelligent DCI Solution Helps Marcatel Address Challenges

Huawei OptiXtrans DC908 is an optical-electrical integrated WDM transmission solution designed for enterprise DCIs and benefits Marcatel in a number of ways:

1.Ultra-broadband and smooth evolution: More value is squeezed out of each wavelength, saving fiber costs. The initial capacity of the project is 8 x 200G per wavelength, which can be smoothly upgraded to 800G per wavelength, realizing 48T/fiber on Super C band and 88T/fiber on Super C+L band. Bandwidth is flexible enough to adjust to Marcatel's future service requirements.

2.Smaller footprint, lower power consumption, and reduced OPEX: A Huawei OptiXtrans DC908 subrack occupies only two rack units but supports a maximum capacity of 12.8 Tbit/s. In addition, optical-layer and electrical-layer boards can be deployed in the same subrack, halving the equipment room space required. And with a power consumption of 1 Gbit/s data transmission at only 0.13 W, Operating Expenditure (OPEX) is slashed at data centers and Point Of Presence (POP) sites.

3.Simplification and intelligence for fast network construction: The device is easy to install and deliver, and deployment is automated to provision services within just eight minutes. This reduces the frequency and duration of site visits, particularly in a world where social distancing is encouraged due to COVID-19. A range of advanced functions — such as fiber health prediction, co-bundling fiber-cable detection, and accurate root cause analysis — enable efficient and proactive O&M for a more reliable DCI network. At the same time, Huawei OptiXtrans DC908 can be managed by the same Network Management System (NMS) on Marcatel's existing backbone network, further simplifying the management system and reducing live-network investment.

4.Secure data transmission: L1 hardware encryption with the high-intensity AES256 algorithm is supported, protecting the data of Marcatel's customers during transmission in the banking sector as well as other industries.

Further Cooperation to Build Industry-Leading DCI Networks

Marcatel is determined to utilize its network experience to provide customers with more options in an era of steady and ongoing traffic growth. Building an industry-leading, ultra-broadband, non-blocking, flexible, intelligent, and future-oriented DCI network is the ultimate goal, which can be achieved with Huawei's OptiXtrans DC908. Looking ahead, Huawei and Marcatel will continue to consolidate their partnership, in turn digitalizing enterprises for a more intelligent future.