Nokia & illwerke vkw AG Announce Optical Transport Network
Nokia has been selected by illwerke vkw AG, a power utility and telecom provider in Austria to deploy an optical transport solution for illwerke vkw’s business customers, which will be capable of supporting 400G wavelengths. This deployment will be completed before 2025.
Nokia’s optical transport network
The Finnish telecommunications company was founded in 1865 and is focused on networking equipment and solutions, from 5G infrastructure to fibre optics. Nokia is dedicated to achieving net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2040 and aims to procure 100% renewable electricity by 2025 across all its facilities, aligning with the RE100 initiative.
This suits Austria’s illwerke vkw AG, as the country is known for embracing sustainability.
Austria has one of the highest recycling rates across the globe. 96% of Austria's population separate their waste into the recyclable categories. Annually every household sorts an average of a million tonnes of waste. Since the beginning of 2020 the country has put a ban on plastic bags.
illwerke vkw AG has four business areas of hydropower, supply and services, energy networks and tourism. The company builds modern pumped storage power plants, develops infrastructure for electric cars, operates efficient energy networks and advances digitalisation. It is the leading energy service provider in the Austrian state of Vorarlberg, generating its power solely from renewable sources.
illwerke vkw AG supplies energy to 200,000 customers and offers telecom services to mobile network providers (MNOs). The company is growing its existing network to a modern infrastructure leveraging Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) and high-performance Nokia Photonic Service Engine (PSE) technology, which is capable of strengthening network scale and ensuring sustainable growth.
The new optical network will reach 15 sites and offer 10G, 25G and 100G mobile backhaul and fronthaul transport services, to connect MNO cell sites and central offices. Illwerke vkw AG will also provide optical transport services for other business customers in the region.
- Allow illwerke vkw AG to manage wavelengths at the photonic layer
- Include Optical Channel Protection for the highest resiliency of services
- Support all fronthaul protocols, making the network ready to support multi-generation radios (3G/4G/5G).
The new optical network also utilises the Nokia WaveSuite Network Operations Center (WS-NOC) which was chosen for its unified end-to-end optical management and support functions including service provisioning and service assurance.
Nokia provides a resilient and superior optical transport network
illwerke vkw AG’s Christoph Märk, Head of IT, shared that the company was excited to work with Nokia to evolve its existing network infrastructure.
“The new optical network will enable us to meet the growing capacity demands and provide high-quality telecom services to mobile service providers and business customers in Vorarlberg,” he said.
Matthieu Bourguignon is the Senior Vice President and Head of Europe for Network Infrastructure Business at Nokia.
“As a premier energy service provider in Austria, illwerke vkw AG stands out by harnessing renewable energy and extending its network and expertise to offer telecommunications services to mobile network operators,” he said. “Like its global counterparts in the energy and telecom sectors, our customer is facing unrelenting demand for capacity which requires significant network modernisation.”
Matthieu shared his hope that Nokia would provide a resilient and superior optical transport network capable of supporting 400G wavelengths and beyond, to serve the present and future requirements of illwerke vkw AG’s customers.
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