ECI says it has collaborated with Dutch national research and education (R&E) network operator SURF on a trial of the system house’s Apollo TM1200 1.2-Tbps dual channel, programmable blade. The trial took place across a 1650-km fiber link between SURF's main facility in Amsterdam and CERN's communication center in Geneva.
The company says the trial showed demonstrated the blade's ability to support live traffic of 300 Gbps per wavelength over predominantly G.655 fibers. The trial route included 22 intermediate nodes and the transmission did not require signal regeneration or RAMAN amplification, ECI asserts. Optimization of the line-rate modulation increased link capacity by approximately 150%, the company adds.
SURF used ECI Apollo platforms to upgrade the SURFnet 8 optical network backbone in 2017 (see “SURFnet chooses ECI for SURFnet8 optical transport network”), paving the way for the current trial of the TM1200 blade, which ECI unveiled late last year (see “ECI offers TM1200 1.2-Tbps dual channel linecard for Apollo DWDM line”). "The TM1200 adds yet another layer of flexibility and programmability to our optical capabilities. With the TM1200 we can now optimize modulation schemes in line with our requirements and the distances transmitted, ensuring optimal use of our fiber capacity," said Rob Smets, network architect at SURF. "We were pleased to discover we could improve link capacity and efficiency by approximately 150% just by replacing the card, even on our 'old' (G.655) fibers. With ECI's help and our continuously updated network capabilities, we will continue to provide our millions of users with the levels of performance and service to which they've become accustomed."
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