Vodafone debuts Ciena-based SDN

Vodafone New Zealand has unveiled what it says is an adaptable and agile network, based on technology from Ciena that can respond in real time to customers’ changing demands.

According to Vodafone it offers a digital user-interface through which business customers will be able to easily request additional network capacity from Vodafone in a faster, automated way.

"With an adaptive network, Vodafone can better support a growing enterprise customer base that requires high-capacity connectivity as business applications and workloads increasingly move to public cloud services (SaaS/IaaS) and cloud data centres both locally and internationally," Vodafone said.

"Vodafone can also set customer-defined service policies and program its network to suggest the ideal capacity, hardware configuration and spectral placement for any channel, across any network path."

Also, Vodafone said, Ciena’s Liquid Restoration capability would enable it to reroute services affected by an outage across any available path in the network.

Vodafone first with 400gbps wavelengths

Vodafone announced in September 2017 that it had "taken a major step in future-proofing its national transport network," by deploying what it claimed to be the world’s first live 400gbps per wavelength optical system from Ciena in partnership with Ciena and test equipment manufacturer Expo.

Vodafone technology director Tony Baird said the Ciena WaveLogic Ai technology was able to support 44 400gbps wavelengths, 17tbps, on a single fibre pair

Initial deployment was in the Auckland metro region, but Vodafone said it planned to expand deployment.

Telco scores equal pay awards

Vodafone has been named the supreme winner at the YWCA Equal Pay Awards, held in Auckland on 7 November, and was also awarded the 2018 YWCA Equal Pay awards after implementing initiatives to address equal pay. Vodafone won in the ‘Leadership’ category, which "celebrates companies who understand the benefits of workplace gender equality and are leading the way for others to follow."