The IOWN Global Forum returned to FYUZ 2025 in Dublin with a clear focus: to demonstrate real, working progress in open optical networking and show how All-Photonic Network (APN) technologies are moving from research labs into operator-ready solutions. Across a pre-event live demo, technical sessions, and an active exhibition booth, the Forum highlighted the future of open, photonics-driven infrastructure—and why it matters for an AI-intensive world.
Hands-On Innovation at Trinity College Dublin
Before FYUZ officially opened, the Forum partnered with Trinity College Dublin’s CONNECT Centre and Telcom Infra Project (TIP) to host a live demonstration for more than 45 attendees from global operators, vendors, and research institutions. The demo showcased:
- Optical Network Digital Twin models for planning and optimization
- Transport PCE controlling multi-vendor equipment using OpenConfig and OpenROADM
- QoT Visualization for real-time optical performance monitoring
- Auto Optical Path Provisioning (AOPP) driven by QoT estimation
- Digital Longitudinal Monitoring (DLM) for visualizing power profiles across fiber spans using only transceiver data
These capabilities illustrate how open, interoperable tools can dramatically improve planning, monitoring, and automation in optical networks, especially as demands grow in the AI era.
Technical Sessions: Progress Through Collaboration
On Day 1 of FYUZ 2025, the Forum joined TIP’s Open Optical & Packet Transport (OOPT) Project Group to reflect on the first year of collaborative work. Speakers from Orange, NTT, Inc., and KDDI shared advancements in:
- APN controller architectures and multi-domain orchestration
- Multi-vendor remote-transponder integration
- Early federation models for inter-operator optical networking
Across the sessions, one theme remained consistent: openness and standardization are essential to scaling high-performance optical networks globally.
Active Engagement at the IOWN Global Forum Booth
Over the following days, engineers, operators, and technology leaders from around the world stopped by the IOWN Global Forum booth to see demonstrations of optical digital twins, DLM, and multi-vendor open networking in action. Attendees represented a wide range of companies across EMEA, APAC, and North America, signaling strong global momentum behind open optical solutions.
A Foundation for the Future
FYUZ 2025 made clear that the shift toward open, photonic networks is accelerating. As AI workloads reshape how traffic moves across datacenters and metro regions, the industry will increasingly depend on:
- Real-time optical telemetry
- Predictive QoT estimation
- Multi-vendor, multi-layer orchestration
- Digital twins that bridge planning and operations
The IOWN Global Forum will continue advancing these capabilities through ongoing collaboration with TIP, research labs, operators, and member companies worldwide.
