Germany’s WOBCOM eases service delivery by disaggregating its edge network

This article was published in Lightwave on April 16, 2024. You can read the original article here

The German-based ISP uses RtBrick routing software on open hardware to deliver business and residential services.

WOBCOM, a regional Wolfsburg, Germany-based ISP, is partnering with RtBrick to deliver Layer-3 broadband and Layer-2 Ethernet services to customers across a disaggregated network edge, using open switches from UfiSpace.

The service provider delivers Ethernet business services up to 100Gbps and residential IP services with symmetrical 1Gbps throughput from their new disaggregated edge.

These services were traditionally provided within closed, monolithic routing systems, but RtBrick claims network disaggregation decouples hardware and software to deliver a more flexible, scalable, and lower-cost network.

WOBCOM has deployed RtBrick’s software on UfiSpace S9510-28DC switches around the city. These switches can each deliver 800Gbps of throughput and support thousands of subscribers in distributing their BNG functions close to the network edge.  WDZ GmbH, a sister company to WOBCOM, integrated the disaggregated solution and plans to offer its integration expertise to other ISPs in Europe.

“Network disaggregation allows us to innovate by independently selecting the best software for our use case and the open hardware we choose to run it on,” said Jan Marienfeldt, Network and Infrastructure team lead at WOBCOM. Using RtBrick’s routing software gives us greater flexibility and allows us to deliver high throughput to both our business and residential customers for less cost.”