Lumenisity, BT drive 400ZR DWDM transmission over hollowcore fiber

June 8, 2021
The demonstration saw 38 channel loading within the C-Band, including 3x400G probe channels using 400ZR QSFP-DD transceivers.

Lumenisity and BT have sent 400ZR coherent optical signals across 10 km of the latest generation of the former’s CoreSmart hollowcore fiber cable. The demonstration saw 38 channel loading within the C-Band, including 3x400G probe channels using 400ZR QSFP-DD transceivers.

The 400ZR work occurred as part of BT’s previously announced evaluation of Lumenisity’s hollowcore cabled fiber for 5G support applications (see BT testing hollowcore fiber for 5G support). The results are being discussed in a paper accepted for this week’s OFC 2021, “First Demonstration of 400ZR DWDM Transmission through Field Deployable Hollow-Core-Fibre Cable.” In addition to the demo itself, the paper discusses superior nonlinear performance the hollowcore fiber offers in comparison with standard single-mode fiber. Such improvements should result in a reduced load on coherent DSPs, the paper’s authors believe.

Lumenisity’s hollowcore fiber is based on an approach called nested anti-resonant nodeless fiber (NANF; see "Startup Lumenisity unveils hollowcore fiber cables for DWDM applications, new funding"). The technology offers lower loss than other hollowcore fiber approaches, with the potential to at least match that of standard single-mode fiber, the company has asserted. The enhancements the latest generation of NANF-based CoreSmart hollowcore fiber cable enjoys also could translate to longer reaches at lower transmission rates such as 10 Gbps, enabling the transmission of wavelengths at this rate beyond 10 km for applications such as high-frequency trading (HFT), Lumenisity believes.

With our latest generation of cable solution, we’re continuing to unlock the huge potential of the NANF hollowcore fibre design, coupled with our field deployment solutions. These build on our extensive field experience in HFT with a number of DCI deployments expected in the near future,” commented Tony Pearson, business development director at Lumenisity.

Along with the link extension between 5G wireless towers and base units, this generation delivers a significant new capability to the high-bandwidth DCI route deployment toolbox, with route extension up to 1.5X and geographic site selection expansion by 2.25X within existing latency envelope design rules. We are delighted to be able to demonstrate this capability in terabit applications,” added Mike Fake, the company’s director of product management.

Lumenisity is exhibiting at OFC 2021 this week in virtual booth 2935.

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