The Telecom Infra Project (TIP) has published the technical specifications for Phoenix, its disaggregated and open optical transponder, with support from Deutsche Telekom, NTT, Telefónica, Telia, and Vodafone.

The project, initially called Apollo, is designed to meet the high-capacity needs of metro, core, and data center interconnect applications.

The 400 GB/s-capable white-box transponder can be deployed on top of or in combination with existing line systems to increase overall network capacity for service providers and content providers.

Last month the group entered into discussions with Edgecore and Wistron to develop hardware for the Phoenix specification. It now plans to release a request for information later this year to evaluate industry interest and anticipates that commercial hardware should reach the market in the first half of 2021.

TIP also announced that optical networking vendor Infinera and software provider Volta Networks had joined the consortium's Disaggregated Open Router subgroup.

The subgroup, which was created late last month under TIP's Open Optical and Packet Transport Group, aims to define, build, and deploy disaggregated IP and MPLS routers. It was initially backed by Ufispace, Exaware, ADVA, Delta, and Edgecore Networks.

Today's announcements mark the latest in a string of advancements for TIP.

Last month it unveiled the Evenstar remote radio unit (RRU), which is designed for use in 4G LTE and 5G radio access networks (RAN), and announced several OpenRAN field trials slated for later this year.

Vodafone has trials underway based on OpenRAN in Mozambique and the Democratic Republic of Congo, and is beginning to roll out the technology in the United Kingdom and Ireland.

Indosat Ooredoo and Smartfren are also planning to begin field tests in Indonesia, and Edotco and Celcom Axiata are working to begin lab trials in Malaysia. Finally, in the United States, Sprint has completed the necessary evaluations to begin lab trials of the OpenRAN 5G New Radio (NR) technology.