In a sign of the growing interest in 400-Gbps optical communications, Viavi Solutions (NASDAQ: VIAV) says it has delivered its ONT-600 400G tester to a wide range of companies across the optical communications spectrum. Customers who have bought the platform include both technology developers and service providers.
Viavi introduced the ONT-600 in 2011, primarily with an eye toward 100-Gbps test requirements (see "JDSU offers ONT-600 Multi-Port Test Module"). The company subsequently added 400-Gbps capabilities, which it demonstrated last September at ECOC 2016 in Dusseldorf, Germany (see "Viavi, Ixia demo 400 Gigabit Ethernet test system with forward error correction"). The demonstration involved what some have described as the first public demonstration of a working 400 Gigabit Ethernet transmission via a CFP8 optical module. The new features include support of forward error correction and PAM4 modulation.
The company now says that it has shipped the 400G-enabled ONT-600 to a wide variety of customers, some of whom Viavi has had to describe in general terms due to customer confidentiality concerns. They include:
- ORIX Rentec, Japan's first test and measurement instrument rental company
- A Tier 1 U.S. telecommunications carrier that offers wireless, wireline, and converged services
- A global manufacturer of fixed and wireless network equipment for carriers, enterprises, and cloud service providers
- A U.S.-based manufacturer of optical network infrastructure
- An optical modules and subsystems vendor
- A provider of high-speed analog semiconductors for the communications and computing markets.
In addition to its current capabilities, the ONT-600 will be able to scale to meet such future applications and requirements as FlexE (Flex Ethernet), FlexO, and 400G OTN, according to Dr. Paul Brooks, 400G technology lead at Viavi.
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