Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU) says it has transmitted 31 Tbps over 7200 km on a single fiber. The achievement represents a new record for single-fiber optical transmission at transoceanic distances, the company asserts.

The transmission test, carried out at Alcatel-Lucent’s Innovation City campus in Villarceaux near Paris, saw researchers from Bell Labs transmit 200 Gbps each over 155 carriers on a 50-GHz grid. The fiber link featured amplifiers every 100 km.

“Undersea fiber-optic transmission is integral to the digital economy, delivering vast amounts of video and data between countries, regions, and continents,” commented Philippe Keryer, chief strategy and innovation officer of Alcatel-Lucent. “As our customers cope with increasing demand on their networks for data capacity and higher-speeds of transmission, our researchers are intensifying their application with tests like this to develop new technology solutions to transform global data networks. This underlines the strategic R&D focus we recently announced as part of The Shift Plan.”

Alcatel-Lucent presented details of the experiment in a post-deadline paper presented earlier this month at the Opto-Electronic Communication Conference (OECC) conference in Japan.

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