Infinera Boasts Long-Haul Breakthrough

http://www.lightreading.com/optical/400g-terabit/infinera-bo…

Infinera believes it has cracked one of the major challenges of the optical networking world – how to increase network capacity without sacrificing transmission distance.

The vendor has developed a new set of transport capacity tools, collectively called the Advance Coherent Toolkit (ACT), that it has tested with Telstra Corp. Ltd. (ASX: TLS; NZK: TLS) over part of the Australian operator’s subsea network. The results appear to show that Infinera’s package of next-generation coherent optical and signal processing technologies will boost fiber capacity over longer distances: That’s important, as most technologies that increase fiber capacity can do so only at the expense of network reach.

It’s also important because operators need to find ways to economically enhance their networks in order to cope with the expected further increases in data volumes (particularly from video traffic) and to prepare for a 5G world. (See Ericsson Predicts 150M 5G Subs in 2021 and Cisco’s Visual Networking Index.)

and also information about the trial performed:

http://www.lightwaveonline.com/articles/2016/01/infinera-tri…

Optical transport systems provider Infinera (NASDAQ:INFN) says it has partnered with Australia’s Telstra to validate the capabilities of the systems house’s upcoming Advanced Coherent Toolkit (ACT). The ACT, which Infinera plans to offer commercially later this year, is designed to support significantly greater reach for such next-generation coherent transmission formats as 16QAM while paving the way for terabit superchannels through the use of Nyquist-based subcarriers and other advanced technologies.

Infinera’s transmission trial with Telstra involved using the ACT and other new-to-Infinera capabilities to transmit high-capacity coherent-based wavelengths across the 9,000-km Endeavour submarine cable system that runs from Sydney, Australia, to Oahu, HI, according to Pravin Mahajan, director of product and corporate marketing at Infinera. The test represents the company’s first publicized support of polarization-multiplexed (PM)-8QAM and PM-16QAM modulation formats, as well as a new DSP architecture that enables coherent processing on both the transmit (including digital-to-analog conversion capabilities) and receive ends of the optical transmission.

Mahajan declined to describe the data rates involved in the Telstra trial, saying that Telstra wanted to keep the potential capacity of the Endeavour submarine network under wraps for the time being. However, he said the ACT will enable a 40% to 50% capacity improvement over conventional coherent transmission approaches. The current generation of the company’s photonic integrated circuit (PIC) is designed with a maximum transmission capability of 1.2 Tbps.

Best,
–Kevin

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