hellas online tests Cisco 100-Gbps technology

The Greek economy may be stagnant, but its bandwidth demands are not, judging from a recent blog post on Cisco’s website. According to the blog, written by Senior Manager of Service Provider Marketing for Routing and Switching Stephen Liu, Greek competitive carrier hellas online has trialed the Cisco ONS 15454 Multiservice Transport Platform equipped with 100-Gbps line cards.

hellas online chose the Cisco ONS 15454 for its fiber-optic network, which now runs 4166 km nationwide, in 2009 (see “hellas online selects Cisco for national fiber network”). Rising bandwidth demands, spurred in part by a new interactive video services offering called “hol video club,” has led the carrier to begin planning for increased network capacity, according to Liu.

Therefore, hellas online tested Cisco’s coherent-based 100-Gbps transmission technology on a route within Athens. Responding to questions from Lightwave, Sultan Dawood, a solutions marketing manager at Cisco, said the bidirectional link ran 38 km and carried live 10-Gbps traffic alongside the trial 100-Gbps wavelengths. The 100-Gbps transmissions included both 10-Gbps streams multiplexed into a single 100-Gbps wavelength as well as 100-Gigabit Ethernet traffic from Cisco routers.

The blog states that the test successfully demonstrated that hellas online can run 100-Gbps wavelengths over its existing multi-wavelength 10-Gbps network. Dawood declined to discuss specific plans hellas online may have for 100-Gbps deployments, but noted that the operator put significant effort into the test.

For more information on high-speed transmission systems and suppliers, visit the Lightwave Buyer’s Guide.