Swedish network operator Telia Carrier today announced plans to join its IP and optical network layers using Acacia’s 400 Gb/s-capable pluggable coherent optics. These optics will be interfaced with Cisco’s routers and connect to Telia's existing line system.

Telia claims the move will dramatically increase the carrier's available bandwidth, simplify network operation, and lower costs. To achieve these goals, Telia will be deploying a combination of Cisco’s NCS 5700 and 8000 series routers in conjunction with Acacia’s quad small form factor pluggable double density modules. These modules support line rates ranging from 100 Gb/s to 400 Gb/s depending on the desired span.

Cisco announced plans to acquire Acacia in June 2019 for $2.6 billion in a bid to bolster its optical networking portfolio. However, Telia Carrier's Johan Gustawsson, who heads up network engineering and architecture, argued that Cisco and Acacia's technologies were ideal candidates even before the acquisition. "We treat them as two very separate entities and it feels very clear to us that they are," he said.

Telia's decision to deploy pluggable optics over more traditional transceivers was driven by the ability to use the former directly with standard routing platforms, Gustawsson explained in an interview with SDxCentral.

"If you think about what you had to do just a year ago, before the emergence of these kinds of pluggables, not only were they not interoperable, but also you could never get the pluggable down to the same form factor," he said, adding that this meant the carrier had to install additional hardware to connect the optics to the routing stack. That increased operating costs and introduced performance challenges.

By using Acacia's pluggable optics, Telia can grow directly in relation with bandwidth demands, rather than having to anticipate demand in advance, according to Gustawsson.

Another advantage of using standardized pluggables is they can be mixed and matched. "I can use vendor A on one side and I can use vendor B on the other," he explained.

Since announcing plans to acquire Acacia last year, Cisco has faced some regulatory challenges that have put the acquisition on hold.

As of June, the two companies had not yet received the necessary regulatory approval in China, which represents the final hurdle in order to close the deal. The United States, Germany, and Austria already signed off on the deal.

While neither company addressed the ongoing trade war with China, raising tensions and an effort by the Trump administration to restrict Chinese access to U.S. intellectual property may be playing a role in the delay.