Technology

Orange and Nokia have achieved what they claim is a new optical transmission record for 250Gb/s per wavelength, sending a 1.5Tb/s super-channel over a distance of 870km across Orange Poland's existing network infrastructure.

These results represent a 250 per cent increase in capacity per wavelength compared to mainstream 100Gb/s optical systems, using the same amount of spectrum while also gaining a 70 per cent distance improvement over comparable field trials.

Optical systems supplier Coriant is proposing a new and potentially cost-disruptive network architecture designed to provide better cost-per-bit economics for service provider networks that are increasingly dominated by asymmetric data traffic.

Dubbed Coriant Light IP, the new architecture integrates IP routing with optical transport while virtualising the higher layer network functions.

OSA Executive Forum 2016 -- The metro market represents the next big opportunity for vendors of data centre interconnect (DCI) equipment, but it seems that not everybody wants new boxes.

One large prospective purchaser of such equipment, Microsoft, says it doesn’t intend to use purpose-built DCI platforms for the sweet spot in its network, namely links of 40km or less.

Infinera is planning to shoot straight past the terabit benchmark to reach multi-terabit capacity with its next generation of optical transmission technology. The company has disclosed details of the ‘Infinite Capacity Engine’, an optical subsystem capable of providing up to 2.4Tb/s of capacity in a single package roughly the size of the credit cards in your wallet.

“We are taking optical transport to the next level with the Infinite Capacity Engine. It’s the first multi-terabit optical subsystem,” claimed Pravin Mahajan, director of product and corporate marketing at Infinera.

The optical division from Nokia has announced technology and product enhancements that will enable service providers to quadruple the amount of capacity transmitted over an optical fibre.

By doubling the capacity of a single wavelength and simultaneously doubling the number of wavelengths transmitted per fibre, Nokia’s flagship 1830 Photonic Services Switch (PSS) platform will scale to support more than 70Tb/s per fibre, the company claims.

Dutch start-up Effect Photonics says it is sampling its first products, a family of DWDM transceivers based on its low-cost optical ‘system-on-chip’ technology.

This technology integrates all the active and passive components of a DWDM transceiver within a single chip, without the traditional gold box packaging. 

Keysight Technologies has developed new technology that will enable the company to deliver real-time and equivalent-time oscilloscopes with bandwidths greater than 100GHz.

The new ‘scopes are aimed at engineers working with next-generation, high-speed interfaces, such as the upcoming IEEE P802.3bs 400G, as well as terabit coherent optical modulation, who will need to measure high-speed electrical parameters. These technologies will also play a key role in validating fifth-generation (5G) wireless designs.

BT has used G.fast technology to deliver a cloud radio access network (C–RAN) cellular network service over copper. The UK operator partnered with US-based semiconductor manufacturer Cavium for the trial, which took places at BT Labs at Adastral Park in Ipswich.

Nokia has completed a laboratory trial with Deutsche Telekom to demonstrate how service providers can use XG-FAST to deliver high-speed broadband over their existing copper networks.

The lab trial was conducted at the end of 2015 by Alcatel-Lucent before its acquisition by Nokia.

The members of the microQSFP (micro quad small form-factor pluggable) multi-source agreement group have released draft mechanical specifications for the new microQSFP module and cage.

The draft mechanical details will allow system designers, optical module makers and copper cable assembly providers across the industry to begin the process of developing next-generation hardware based on the microQSFP definition.