Ericsson and Telstra successfully trial 1-Tbps optical link

Australian incumbent Telstra and equipment vendor Ericsson have successfully conducted the first trial of 1-Tbps technology in Australia over 995 km of an existing fiber-optic cable plant.

The successful test, which took place on a link between Sydney and Melbourne, shows it is possible to deploy 1-Tbps technology in a real fiber-optic network environment, the companies say. Furthermore, when 1 Tbps reaches commercial availability, operators will be in a position to deploy it immediately to meet their capacity requirements.

Telstra director transport and routing engineering, David Robertson says, "We are currently upgrading our optical transmission networks with Ericsson's next-generation 100-Gbps technology and this trial demonstrates that the higher 1-Tbps speeds are possible.

"The trial has proven that our existing optical cable plant can support terabit channels along with 40-Gbps and 100-Gbps channels simultaneously on the same optical fiber, verifying that we have the ability to increase capacity on our existing fiber cables when required," Roberts concluded.

Ericsson recently announced it will provide Telstra with the SPO 1400, its packet optical transport platform (POTP) for the metro, and the MHL 3000 for long-haul applications with 100-Gbps service support (see “Ericsson choice for Telstra optical network upgrade”). The field trial used a 1-Tbps line card in the MHL 3000.

Ericsson's terabit technology used in the trial has some important advantages, the company claims: the optical characteristics are software configurable; innovative frequency packing yields high spectral efficiency; and advanced forward error correction provides superior performance of the communications channel.

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