ECI has announced four new deployments of its Apollo family of optical systems, including the integrated 400G blade, by customers across Europe in the last few months.

The ability to add 200G wavelengths (and beyond) to existing optical networks can help operators keep ahead of the demand curve. The new ECI deployments are not only proof of market demand for higher capacities, but also that the ECI solution is a strong contender in this space, the company claims.

To provide its member organisations with better peering services, the London Internet Exchange (LINX) has deployed Ciena’s Waveserver stackable data centre interconnect (DCI) platform to connect its data centres throughout London.

LINX has 11 points of presence across London, connecting more than 740 members across more than 70 different countries. By offering its members cost-effective and high-capacity links between its data centres, a large number of international peering partners can exchange traffic more efficiently.

ZTE has completed a commercial trial with China Telecom intended to show how the Chinese operator can combine different legacy technologies with next-generation 10Gb/s systems on its optical access network.

The trial of ZTE’s Combo passive optical network (PON) solution took place in two local networks in Changzhou and Yancheng, in east China’s Jiangsu province. The trial was undertaken jointly with China Telecom’s Jiangsu branch and the China Telecom Beijing Research Institute.

FTTH CONFERENCE 2017, MARSEILLE – NG-PON2 has made the leap into the real world, with the news that Northpower Fibre and Calix have carried out a trial of NG-PON2 equipment in a live service provider network.

Wholesale operator Northpower Fibre operates a fibre to the home (FTTH) in Whangerei, which was deployed as part of the New Zealand government’s Ultra Fast Broadband initiative. Northpower is offering gigabit services today, and anticipates the need to upgrade its network as more customers start to demand such blazing fast speeds.

Moscow-headquartered global carrier Avelacom has significantly reduced the latency across its London to Moscow long-haul network by upgrading the route with equipment from PacketLight Networks.

Avelacom is fast growing international carrier that prides itself on providing highly reliable, low-latency infrastructure – exactly the sort of thing demanded by financial markets for their highly time-sensitive trades. 

Anchorage-based Quintillion Networks is deploying Ciena’s 8700 Packetwave platform to support the first phase of its 15,000km submarine fibre-optic cable system through the Arctic. When complete, the subsea cable will connect Europe to Asia along the Lower Northwest Passage, providing a diverse and shorter route between the two continents.

Verizon has successfully completed what it believes is the first interoperability trial of next generation passive optical network, or NG-PON2, technology at its Verizon Labs location in Waltham, Massachusetts.

This trial demonstrated that equipment from different vendors on either end of a single fibre – at the service provider's endpoint and at the customer's endpoint – can be used to deliver service without impacting the end user. This breakthrough will provide increased flexibility and resiliency as well as the ability to meet customer needs more quickly, the company says.

Jersey’s state-owned operator JT has connected 70 per cent of the properties on the island with fibre to the home (FTTH), according to an update issued this week.

JT’s fibre-optic broadband project – known as Gigabit Jersey – is interesting because it is one of the few programmes in the world where the operator plans to completely replace its copper network with fibre optics.

Optical systems developer ECI has signed a contract to provide the optical transport layer of the SURFnet network, supporting the national research and education community in the Netherlands.

The next generation of the SURFnet network, SURFnet8, will feature ECI’s Apollo high-speed optical transport platform coupled with a 100G blade and new collector reconfigurable optical add-drop multiplexers (ROADMs). SURFnet will migrate to the new ECI solution in 2017.

Cable operator Altice USA has decided to skip over DOCSIS 3.1 upgrades and invest in a full fibre to the home (FTTH) deployment across its entire network footprint, in a project that is expected to be complete within five years.

The fourth largest cable company in the US following its acquisitions of Suddenlink and Cablevision, Altice USA is also the first major cable provider in the country to announce a large-scale fibre deployment plan.