Infinera and Arelion have demonstrated a transmission of 400Gb/s wavelengths using a QSFP-DD pluggable coherent transceiver over 1,800km of SMF-28 fibre in a live production network.
This milestone was achieved by leveraging Infinera’s ICE-X 400G ZR+ intelligent pluggable coherent transceiver across Arelion’s production transmission network on routes between Dallas, Memphis, and Chattanooga.
In addition to the performance at 400Gb/s, the field trial also demonstrated the programmability of the ICE-X intelligent pluggable coherent solution. By adjusting the modulation of the optical signal in the same pluggable coherent solution, the companies also demonstrated long-distance performance at 300 and 200Gb/s using a QSFP-DD pluggable. These achievements were made possible by leveraging Arelion’s open and disaggregated networking approach over its live network with concurrently deployed wavelengths, including those of third-party solution providers.
Georgios Tologlou, Senior Network Architect at Arelion says: “We are pleased to once again partner with Infinera. We were early investors in optical pluggable components to drive demonstrable value and cost-efficiency for our customers. Lab trials with perfect fibre are one thing. But we are not afraid to test these pluggables in live networks over the same fibre we’re using for live traffic, so we were happy to demonstrate the real-world potential of Infinera’s new coherent pluggable technology when implemented through Arelion’s open and disaggregated network architecture.”
Infinera’s second achievement was in partnership with Corning and delivered a 400Gb/s single-wavelength transmission with ICE-X across 2,400km of Corning’s TXF optical fibre. The companies say that the success of the 400G transmission demonstration highlights the wide range of applications that can be addressed with this solution, better enabling network operators to meet growing bandwidth demands.
The demonstration featured ICE-X hosted in UfiSpace’s 400G disaggregated core and edge routers across 2,400km of Corning’s TXF fibre, an ultra-low-loss, silica-core fibre with large effective area. The demonstration leveraged the advanced features supported by Infinera’s line of ICE-X intelligent coherent pluggables, including integrated system-level intelligence, programmable modulation, tuneable baud rate, efficient spectrum use, and 0dBm launch power.
Robert Maher, Infinera CTO says: “This achievement underscores the value of Infinera’s fully vertically integrated and highly programmable line of ICE-X pluggables. It also highlights the value of integrated system-level intelligence in enabling industry-leading point-to-point ZR+ performance even when deployed in third-party elements. ICE-X enables network operators to leverage cost-efficient and power-efficient pluggable solutions across a broad range of network applications without sacrificing performance, manageability, or network resiliency.”
Sharon Bois, division vice president, product line and marketing, Corning Optical Fiber and Cable adds: “We are pleased to collaborate with Infinera once again to prove how combined leading-edge technologies can work together to maximise capacity and reach. Our TXF fibre enables network operators to transmit more data over longer distances and help connect the unconnected, all while lowering their overall network costs.”
Corning and Infinera are demonstrating this data transmission at booth #4126 at OFC.
