Energie AG, Austria lights up optical transport network

Having recently announced success in the US and across Latin America, Nokia has now picked up a European deal for its range of optical networking services. It has been selected by utility and infrastructure company Energie AG Oberösterreich to build an optical transport network across 18 sites in Upper Austria.

Energie AG Oberösterreich is a regional energy supply and infrastructure company with subsidiaries and holdings that are active in the energy sectors – in particular the electricity, natural gas and heat sectors – as well as in the waste disposal and water sectors.

A subsidiary of Energie AG, Energie AG Telekom is currently operating a fibre-optic network that spans more than 7,000km. Currently, Energie AG’s fibre-optic access network creates up to 6.4 Terabits per second of aggregated traffic for the optical transport network to carry. The capacity of the new transport network can be scaled to 10s of Tbs, providing Energie AG with plenty of room for growing demand and customer base.

As part of its deal with Nokia, Energie AG will use the network to backhaul traffic from fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) nodes in regional sites to two central sites. Deployment is already under way.

“By investing in an optical transport network spanning 7,000km across Upper Austria, we hope to vastly improve our customers’ experience with high-speed fibre access,” said Energie AG Oberösterreich CEO Werner Steinecker. “The Nokia fibre-optics solution is proven worldwide and technically solid and will give us the opportunity to grow even further by scaling to our needs as we continue to broaden our customer base.”

Nokia’s portfolio of optical networking hardware and software will be used for the upgrade. This includes the Nokia 1830 PSS (Photonic Service Switch) platform, powered by its Photonic Service Engine (PSE) coherent technology, and the Nokia Network Services Platform (NSP) software automation suite.

“It has become very clear over the past two years that the scaling of fibre-based connectivity virtually everywhere is a key economic factor for any country,” said Patrick Langelaan, vice-president Nokia Enterprise CBT Europe South. “Local and regional communications service providers can play an important role in providing this ultra-fast connectivity. We are excited to support Energie AG on its journey to connect Upper Austria with high-speed fibre access.”

Nokia has already deployed optical local area network (LAN) services for more than 450 enterprise customers across the globe, including hotel chains, manufacturers, airports, schools, healthcare providers and government. In August 2022, the company announced that it had signed a strategic alliance with network cabling firm Furukawa Electric to accelerate optical  LAN deployments in Latin America.

This deployment came hot on the heels of the company showcasing its first 100Gbps fibre broadband technology in the US, with service provider Metronet deploying its next-generation passive optical network (PON) to deliver 10Gbps speeds to subscribers with an upgrade path to 25G.