Huawei is showcasing a 40T Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) prototype at this week’s OFC/NFOEC 2013 event in Anaheim, California.
The prototype supports simultaneous transmission of 20 C-band optical channels running at 2 Tbps, providing an industry-leading capacity of up to 40 Tbps per fiber.
Huawei cited three innovations in its platform:
The combined use of Electrical Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (eOFDM) and frequency-domain Hybrid Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (QAM) technologies substantially improve spectrum efficiency to 10 bit/s/Hz.
The combined use of Flex-Optical Digital Signal Processing (Flex ODSP) and Hybrid Soft-/Hard-Decision Multi-level Coding (HMLC) technologies extend the transmission distance to beyond 1,000 km over common single-mode fiber and Erbium-Doped Fiber Amplifiers (EDFAs).
Software-implemented transceiver technology allows optical modulation formats such as Quadrature Phase-Shift Keying (QPSK), 16QAM, 32QAM, and 64QAM to be adjusted or combined, achieving a configurable transmission rate and distance for each service. As a result, dynamic service needs in varied scenarios can be easily met.
In 2012, Huawei completed a 2 Tbps WDM field trial with Vodafone, achieving up to 3,325 km transmission for 2 Tbps signals. The 40T WDM prototype is another major breakthrough in high-speed transmission proving current commercial optical networks will be ready for the upcoming flood of digital traffic.
