Intelligent Data Centres Issue 12 | Page 9

NEWS Ericsson and Fraunhofer IPT launch 5G-Industry Campus Europe ricsson and the Fraunhofer Institute for Production Technology (IPT) have launched 5G-Industry Campus Europe, the continent’s largest industrial 5G research network, to jointly explore with companies and research partners further areas in which 5G can be applied within production and to test these as practically as possible. E Germany’s Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure (BMVI) is funding the consortium, which Fraunhofer IPT is coordinating on the Melaten campus at RWTH Aachen University, in order to set up the regional 5G research network. Fraunhofer IPT has selected Ericsson as its private 5G networks supplier. The project partners at 5G-Industry Campus Europe will investigate application scenarios in seven sub-projects within the field of production. These include 5G sensors for monitoring and controlling highly complex manufacturing processes to mobile robotics, logistics and multi-site production chains. In addition, scientists at RWTH Aachen University want to test the use of modern Edge cloud systems for fast data processing to exploit the potential of 5G in a networked, adaptive production. German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, and Swedish Prime Minister, Stefan Löfven, were updated on the progress and benefits of 5G-Industry Campus Europe during a visit to the Hannover Messe trade fair in 2019. 5G-Industry Campus Europe’s outdoor private networks at RWTH Aachen University cover an area of about 1 km sq. Its indoor private networks – in the machine halls of the participating partners, which represent all fields of production technology – cover an area of almost 7,000 m sq. The facilities are equipped with state-of-the-art IT and production systems, offering unique infrastructure to jointly test individual 5G and IoT applications together with the research partners and develop these earlier than usual. This means the partners can benefit directly from 5G-Industry Campus Europe. Ciena upgrades EIG submarine cable system to connect businesses in Europe, Middle East and India he Europe India Gateway (EIG) submarine cable system has been upgraded to accelerate and strengthen connectivity between businesses in the UK, Europe, the Middle East and India. Using Ciena’s submarine network solution, the upgrade allows EIG to utilise flexible, express wavelengths, also known as optical bypass, to reduce operational costs as well as space and power requirements while improving reliability. T The cable has been upgraded with Ciena’s GeoMesh solution, powered by WaveLogic Ai coherent optics, which offers EIG new levels of flexibility, the lowest cost per transported bit and the ability to meet unpredictable traffic demands. The upgrade adds 24.3 Tb/s of information carrying capacity to the EIG cable, with a spectral efficiency increase of 52%, in comparison to previous technology. With WaveLogic Ai, EIG can transport up to 400Gb/s per wavelength, driving more capacity per channel at longer distances. The EIG cable system is a 15,000 km international fibre optic submarine cable system that links the United Kingdom with Gibraltar, Portugal, Monaco, France, Libya, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Djibouti, Oman, United Arab Emirates and India. As one of the primary data connections between India and Europe, the Middle East and Africa, the EIG transports significant quantities of data between consumers and businesses. www.intelligentdatacentres.com Issue 12 9