By Oystein Bergmann, Bureau Chief, Scandinavia

Swisscom and Nokia have announced the successful completion of Swisscom’s nationwide Next Evolution Wavelength Transport Optical Network (NEWTON) and the official start of service migration to the modernized network. Facing high traffic growth and digital transformation, the Nokia optical networking solution equips Switzerland’s largest telecom provider with a service-centric network optimized for high performance, cost efficiency and superior customer experience.

The surge in remote work and learning applications, video streaming, gaming, and cloud computing intensified Swisscom’s goal in 2021 to bolster support for business-critical fixed and wireless traffic. The carrier selected Nokia’s portfolio of optical networking hardware, software and professional services for the entire transformation which included the rollout of 22 backbone sites and 560 metro sites.

With the deployment completed ahead of schedule, Swisscom and Nokia will now jointly manage the migration of services to the modernized network. The new optical network will transport all of Swisscom’s fixed and wireless traffic from customer-provided equipment to metro access to the backbone, supporting client services from 1G to 400G, and efficiently aggregating and managing traffic from end-to-end while maximizing fiber usage. The solution will address massive traffic growth by eliminating repetitive tasks, accelerating service delivery, and reducing overall ownership costs. Appreciably lower power consumption – a significant innovation in the Nokia optical portfolio – is also contributing to Swisscom’s corporate sustainability goals by reducing its carbon footprint.

CEO at Swisscom, Christoph Aeschlimann said: “The transformation of Swisscom’s optical network is essential for our future digitalization. Through the partnership with Nokia, we have a network that can quickly adapt to changes and provide superior service to our customers while contributing to our sustainability goals. We are pleased to move to this next stage of service migration, working together with Nokia as our trusted partner.”

President of Network Infrastructure, Nokia, Federico Guillén said: “We are proud to partner with Swisscom on the modernization of its optical transport network, and to deliver in record time during a period of tremendous global uncertainty. This is a showcase service-centric network, fully leveraging automation to streamline service delivery and minimize costs, even as it effortlessly scales to support surging customer traffic demands.”

Swisscom selected Nokia’s portfolio of optical networking hardware, software and professional services for the entire transformation, including the Nokia Photonic Service Engine (PSE)-V powered 1830 family of Wavelength Division Multiplexing/Optical Transport Networking (WDM/OTN) platforms, and the WaveSuite portfolio of networking applications.