Infinera, in partnership with network operator, Windstream, has completed a live network trial that achieved 800Gb/s single-wavelength transmission over 730km.
The trial took place across Windstream’s long-haul network between San Diego and Phoenix, and additionally looped back the signal to achieve a 700G transmission over 1,460km. It was performed using Infinera’s fifth-generation coherent optical technology, ICE6 (Infinite Capacity Engine), equipped in a Groove (GX) Series platform over industry-standard G.652-compliant SMF-28 fibre.
The results demonstrate that ultra-high-speed optical transmissions, such as 700G and 800G, powered by Infinera’s ICE6 optical engine and Windstream’s high-performance fibre network, can be deployed in real-world network applications over significant distances. The companies believe this could help to enable emerging 400GbE services to be supported over longer distances within the Windstream national network. High-performance high-speed transmission could also enable network operators to realise increased efficiency in cost per bit and power per bit, as well as increased capacity-per-fibre.
The 700G and 800G transmission performance was enabled by advances in Nyquist subcarriers, developed by Infinera’s Optical Innovation Center (OIC). These subcarrier-based solutions are designed to enable superior performance by mapping the traffic into tightly packed, lower-baud-rate digital subcarriers within a single optical carrier. In addition to providing significant performance benefits on their own, subcarriers also amplify the benefits of other innovations from Infinera’s OIC such as 64QAM long-codeword probabilistic constellation shaping and dynamic bandwidth allocation that now can be applied to each subcarrier independently.
Buddy Bayer, chief network officer at Windstream explained: ‘Windstream remains committed to staying at the forefront of technological innovation and the superior performance of ICE6 brings real-world value to our network and enables us to meet the explosive growth in bandwidth demands of our customers. The flexibility of ICE6 coupled with the easily deployable compact modular form factor of the GX Series will enable Windstream to quickly and easily introduce this new technology across our entire network from edge to core.’
Parthiban Kandappan, chief technology officer at Infinera added: ‘Infinera is delighted to set this new industry benchmark and partner with Windstream, a network operator that continually pushes the boundaries of optical networking. As proven by the superior performance of this network trial, we believe our unique expertise with Nyquist subcarriers coupled with the groundbreaking innovations introduced by ICE6 will represent the standard for high-speed optical engines going forward.’
