Infinera announced the first successful demonstration of a 100 Gbps signal enhanced with Soft Decision Forward Error Correction (SD-FEC) across Telstra Global’s dedicated fibre pair within Segment S5 of AAG Hawaii to California submarine cable — a span of 4,200km. The test used Infinera’s DTN-X platform and a prototype super-channel line card enabled with Infinera’s 3rd generation FlexCoherent Processor for real time SD-FEC processing combined with the industry’s only 500 Gbps Photonic Integrated Circuits (PICs).
Infinera said SD-FEC technology has the potential to double the transmission capacity of existing submarine cables with its advanced error recovery capabilities. In this test, multiple Infinera FlexCoherent modulation formats were able to close the link with no bit errors detected. Infinera’s FlexCoherent technology enables its line card to be configured for a specific modulation format via simple software controls.
“We are delighted by the results of this field trial and this shows further increased capacity potential for Telstra Global’s leading submarine cable plant. Our continuing focus on cutting edge technologies will enable us to continue to deliver new services to our customers and meet their future capacity needs with a long term, reliable offering,” stated Martijn Blanken, Telstra’s Global Managing Director.
“We are pleased to see that our 3rd generation FlexCoherent™ Processor along with 500 Gb/s PICs, is performing exceptionally in real world environments. Over the past few months we’ve shown that a PIC-based long haul super-channel implementation can deal with record-breaking levels of PMD impairments in fiber; deliver a full 8Tb/s of capacity on Dispersion Shifted Fiber that service providers might have written off as useless, and now with Telstra’s help we’ve shown that with the addition of SD-FEC, this technology is capable of being deployed on some of the longest and most challenging cable routes in the world,” stated Dr. David Welch, Infinera’s co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer.
