ZTE offers industry-first solution for seamless upgrade from PTN to POTN

ZXCTN 6500 300mm T-class product supports the integration of packet transport networks (PTN) and optical transport network (OTN) through unified switching.

  • Monday, 20th January 2014 Posted 10 years ago in by Phil Alsop

ZTE Corporation has released the ZXCTN 6500 300mm T-class large capacity POTN product. This product is the first solution for the unified evolution from packet transport network (PTN) to packet optical transport network (POTN) in the industry.


The ZXCTN 6500 300mm T-class supports the integration of PTN and OTN (optical transport network) through unified switching, the efficient transport of L1/L2/L3 services and SDN (software defined network)-oriented control plane architecture. The seamless upgrade from PTN to POTN can simplify complex network layers and significantly reduce operator’s investments.


Traditional PTN+OTN multi-layer networks present many challenges such as high cost and large equipment size. ZTE’s POTN solution can substantially increase the existing PTN’s bandwidth, simplify network layers, save valuable machine room space and allow a single network to carry multiple applications. Compared to traditional solutions, the new product can save 50 to 60 percent in energy consumption, 47 to 65 percent in space occupied, 70 percent in service deployment time and 50 percent in time cost for fault diagnosis. Furthermore, the new product makes it possible for flexible scheduling and arbitrary conversion of the PTN packet traffic and the ODU (optical data unit) sub-wavelength traffic, thereby optimising the existing network’s multi-layer architecture.


“The ZXCTN 6500 300mm T-class can effectively solve the problems of operators and represents the future development trend of packet transport networks,” said ZTE Vice President Xu Ming. “With mature standards and an established production chain, I believe POTN will be widely deployed on a large scale in 2014.”


Since the previous PTN version was released in Q3, 2012, the ZXCTN 6500 family of products has been highly praised by customers. In 2013 China Mobile centralised procurement ranked the ZXCTN 6500 No.1 and it was exclusively selected for the construction of China Mobile’s backbone networks. According to the PTN Market Research Report 2013 by Frost & Sullivan, the ZXCTN 6500 is the most competitive PTN product and meets the needs of LTE bearer networks and trunk line construction in the most optimum way. According to the Ovum Market Share Report: 1Q13 Global ON, ZTE ranks No.1 in the global aggregation market based on its performance in PTN technology. ZTE’s ZXCTN products have been widely deployed in both China and international markets.