The MOPA Purpose
MOPA is driving the industry towards agreement on the optimum optical pluggables to be developed & made widely available to underpin high performance 5G and future 6G network buildouts.
MOPA produces publicly available technical papers documenting the high-level requirements and optical solutions, known as optical blueprints, necessary for critical parts of the mobile network (fronthaul, backhaul, etc.), with the necessary data rates (10G, 25G, 50G 100G) and the most suitable technologies (gray, WDM, packet). MOPA also liaise and contribute to standardization developing organizations (such as ITU-T, IEEE, SNIA SFF etc) regarding standards required for mobile optics.
MOPA is a nonprofit organization incorporated in Delaware, USA. The MOPA Board consists of representatives of the six founding companies (Ericsson, Nokia, Sumitomo Electric, Coherent, Lumentum and Semtech). MOPA has an Operator Advisory Board consisting of the leading mobile operators.
MOPA welcomes membership applications from leading global companies in mobile optics.
This work aims to better support the industry to optimize efficiency and time plans by describing uses of optical technologies and solutions across mobile transport in a concise manner. The Tech papers describe and clarify what the authors think is needed for the mobile RAN equipment for optical pluggables. This description makes it clear what function is needed and lowers barrier to entry for developing components for the RAN equipment environment without wasting time and investment on unnecessary solutions for which there is no demand. Ideally this would result in robust, competitive offerings of optical components and solutions for the mobile environment to the ultimate benefit of consumers.
By mobile transport we mean networks that connect RAN equipment such as RUs, DUs and CUs, including eNodeB and gNodeB, and also transport equipment such as cell site gateways and active WDM equipment dedicated to mobile traffic
The papers outline important RAN deployment cases and the optical solutions best suited to these cases. The solutions in this paper are called mobile optical solution blueprints, or just Blueprints, encompassing the optical technologies—mainly optical pluggable modules but also accompanying components such as WDM filters—best suited to satisfy deployment needs. Optical pluggables are defined as front-panel pluggable optical transceivers in popular form factors like SFP+, SFP28, SFP56, SFP112, QSFP28, etc. and the Blueprints are intended as global solutions, i.e., as generic as possible to cover a wide range of network scenarios.
The tech papers organize and integrate existing standards and implementation agreements produced by Standards Development Organizations (SDO), Industry Fora and multi-source agreements (MSAs), where the Blueprints cover the different technical aspects, forming a broad description of optical solutions useful and important for mobile transport networks. Where standards are: missing, insufficient or not meeting the requirements of mobile transport, the MOPA liaise and make contributions to SDOs and/or add specifications to the MOPA tech papers.
Some of the key benefits of the MOPA initiative
All industry players (communications service providers, systems vendors, and optical pluggable vendors) can gain from this common and shared view to make it easier, and with lower risk, to estimate and plan the evolution of networks and products.
R&D work can be done faster and more effectively with reduced risk.
Better ecosystems with more stable and sustainable supply chains can be produced.
History
MOPA was initiated in 2021 by five market leading companies, Ericsson, Nokia, Coherent, Lumentum and Sumitomo Electric. In the beginning of 2023, Semtech also joined MOPA. These six companies founded in August 2023 the new legal entity “MOBILE PLUGGABLES ALLIANCE, INC.” as a nonprofit corporation registered in Delaware USA. at the end of 2023, NEC and MACOM also joined MOPA.
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