DWDM solution facilitates efficient connection of 5G antennas to the M-net quantum network in Munich

Before the regional German telecoms provider M-net could provide fiber connections for the 5G roll-out in Munich, it had to consider a variety of requirements: minimum total cost of ownership for mobile operators, the smallest possible impact on construction activities in the city, and minimum energy consumption and CO2 emissions during network operation. Although M-net has broad network coverage and a dense fiber infrastructure, its own fiber optic cables were insufficient to provide every mobile network operator with several fibers at each antenna location.  

To enable the fiber optic provider to offer fiber access as a "neutral host" for a dense cell site architecture of 5G mobile operators, an innovative solution was required that maximises the infrastructure capabilities while routing each operator's data connection independently to different sites via different paths. M-net also had to consider the critical latency time as a whole, as well as for identical upstream and downstream times. 

To achieve its objectives of creating a wider application scope using the existing fiber optic network while generating added value, M-net turned to HUBER+SUHNER. Working together, the companies devised a network architecture based on Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) systems to connect the central locations of the mobile network operators to the antenna locations via M-net Open RAN operation rooms. Latency requirements were satisfied using a bi-directional (BiDi) DWDM architecture with single fibers and latency-optimised passive DWDM Mux systems.