Infinera, Canalink trial Infinite Capacity Engine across submarine cable

May 9, 2017

Infinera (NASDAQ:INFN) says it has successfully completed a submarine network field test of the capabilities of its Infinite Capacity Engine (ICE4) with Canalink, a wholly owned subsidiary of the ITER group. Canalink operates a submarine cable system that connects the Canary Islands with the Iberian Peninsula and the western coast of Africa.

The test leveraged Canalink's 1,393-km undersea cable that runs from the Conil landing point in Spain to Tenerife in the Canary Islands. The tests featured optical transmission across three fully loaded channel plans at channel spacings of 37.5 GHz, 50 GHz, and 25 GHz. Under review were such ICE capabilities as support of software-programmable QPSK and 8QAM, Nyquist subcarriers, and soft-decision forward error correction (see "Infinera moves terabit optical networks closer to commercialization with Infinite Capacity Engine").

"The successful field test with Infinera demonstrated that we can achieve approximately 13 times more capacity than we initially estimated on our subsea link," said Carlos Suárez, general director of Canalink. "Infinera's Infinite Capacity Engine and its innovative technology designed for subsea operators prove that its deployment can enable us to protect our investment and maximize the use of our infrastructure."

Infinera recently announced application of its ICE to submarine line terminal equipment (see "Infinera offers SLTE based on Infinite Capacity Engine"). While the ICE has found a home on both terrestrial and now submarine systems, the Advanced Coherent Toolkit that provides a significant part of the ICE's capabilities received its first publicly announced workout in a submarine cable trial (see "Infinera trials terabit Advanced Coherent Toolkit with Telstra").

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