Tera Santa Consortium tests 1-Tbps optical transmission via OFDM

April 17, 2014
Members of the Tera Santa Consortium, an initiative of the Israeli Chief Scientist Office in the Ministry of Economy, has demonstrated the use of optical orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) to transmit a non-regenerated 1-Tbps superchannel over the Deutsches Forschungsnetz e.V. (DFN-Verein) German research fiber-optic network.

Members of the Tera Santa Consortium, an initiative of the Israeli Chief Scientist Office in the Ministry of Economy, has demonstrated the use of optical orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) to transmit a non-regenerated 1-Tbps superchannel over the Deutsches Forschungsnetz e.V. (DFN-Verein) German research fiber-optic network.

The Tera Santa Consortium was established in 2011 and includes ECI Telecom, Finisar Corp. (NASDAQ: FNSR), MultiPhy, Cello, Civcom, Bezeq International, the Technion Israel Institute of Technology, Ben-Gurion University, the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Bar-Ilan University, and Tel-Aviv University. The OFDM optical transceiver the consortium developed for the trial leveraged ECI Telecom’s Apollo packet-optical transport systems, which DFN deployed across its X-WiN fiber-optic network in 2012 (see "DFN-Verein turns to ECI Telecom for 100G fiber-optic network upgrade").

Finisar demonstrated the software-defined 1-Tbps optical transceiver that leveraged the different algorithms the consortium developed, as well as its Flexgrid wavelength-selective switch (WSS) technology, which was used to add and drop the 200-GHz superchannel. The OFDM algorithms were developed by both MultiPhy (128 OFDM carriers) and Technion (1024 OFDM carriers), using two different implementation approaches.

The trial took place at the Technische Universität Dresden using DFN’s live X-WiN network. The team added the 1-Tbps superchannel to the live network without any traffic disruption.

“DFN strives to be at the forefront of networking to better provide our users with the highest level of connectivity and services over the X-WiN network,” said Dr. Stefan Piger of the DFN Association. “The 1T trial with ECI’s Apollo platform showed us a nearby future full of possibilities for our members.”

"ECI and our technology partners Finisar, MultiPhy, and the Technion, members of the Tera-Santa consortium, demonstrated the power of 1-terabit optical link coherent technology. With such high transmission rates, DFN can exponentially increase its network capacity and provide its users better and more cost effective services,” added Shai Stein, CTO of ECI Telecom and consortium chairman.

The 1-Tbps OFDM trial followed a consortium demonstration of non-regenerated 100G traffic over the Jonah international submarine cable, owned by Bezeq International. The optical signal was transmitted by the Apollo OMLT over a total distance of 4600 km from Tel Aviv to Bari, Italy and back.

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