Arelion claims optical transmission first

As part of their plan to serve the surging bandwidth demands of wholesale and enterprise customers, Arelion and Ciena are claiming to have completed the world’s first 1.6 terabits-per-second (Tbps) wavelengths data transmission in a live network field trial.

Powered by Ciena’s WaveLogic 6 Extreme (WL6e), the “milestone” occurred on Arelion’s 470km route between its existing points-of-presence (PoPs) in Ashburn, Virginia (Equinix) and Telxius’ (Telxius-CLS) Virginia Beach cable landing station, increasing capacity between two locations regarded as critical in Arelion’s North American network.

WL6e coherent transceiver uses 3nm silicon technology and digital signal processing (DSP) innovations to improve energy efficiency and performance, and reductions in space and power per bit.

It is said to be providing Arelion with a 50% space and power per bit reduction and 15% higher spectral efficiency compared with previous generations.

WL6e is also seen to enable Arelion to deliver multiple 400/800 Gbps services using 1.6 Tbps line capacity, supporting higher traffic volumes and faster connectivity speeds across its existing network footprint.

The trial also used Ciena’s open, programmable 6500 Reconfigurable Line System (RLS), an offering designed to simplify and automate network service provisioning and reconfiguration. 

Following this trial, Arelion will deploy WL6e across its network to increase its ability to serve the surging bandwidth demands of 5G, cloud services, artificial intelligence/machine learning (AI/ML) applications, content delivery, and more for wholesale and enterprise customers.

The company believes the achievement enhances the performance of its optical transmission services for service providers, content providers and enterprises, and that the milestone reinforces early investments in open optical networking and next-generation coherent optic services to improve performance, energy efficiency and cost savings.

“This new benchmark reflects our ongoing investment in cutting-edge optical networking technologies that increase capacity and performance while reducing energy consumption to benefit our customers,” said Dariusz Solowiej, vice-president of network technology and customer operations at Arelion.

“Our collaboration with Ciena is crucial in supporting global enterprises’ capacity needs amid rising power and colocation costs, helping us provide the reliable connectivity companies need to transfer massive data volumes at the fastest speeds available today.”

Jamie Jefferies, vice-president and international general manager at Ciena, added: “This significant milestone with Arelion serves as a template for service providers striving to improve the energy efficiency and scalability of their optical networks amid mounting bandwidth demands.

“As the industry’s first 1.6 Tbps coherent optic solution, WaveLogic 6 Extreme brings forth new innovative capabilities for optical transport, with forward-thinking service providers like Arelion leading the charge.”