Telia Carrier and Infinera demonstrate first 600G transmission in production network

Infinera Corp of Sunnyvale, CA, USA, a vertically integrated manufacturer of digital optical network systems incorporating its own indium phosphide-based photonic integrated circuits (PICs), and Telia Carrier of Stockholm, Sweden (said to be the world’s numer-one Internet backbone) have announced the first real-time transmission of 600 gigabits per second (600G) wavelengths in a live production network.

The milestone was achieved using the latest generation of the Infinera Infinite Capacity Engine, ICE5. The ICE5 600G technology, including 64 QAM (quadrature amplitude modulation) and 69 gigabaud operation, also sets the foundation for the next-generation ICE6, which is on track to deliver 800G.

The trial achieved 600G single-wavelength transmission from Palo Alto to San Francisco across Telia Carrier’s production network, which is built on Infinera’s FlexILS platform (claimed to be the industry’s most widely deployed flexible grid open line system). Infinera says that the trial illustrates that Telia Carrier’s deployed FlexILS network is ready for next-generation transponders operating at 600G and beyond, enabling Telia to continue scaling capacity to meet customer demand for the foreseeable future.

“Working together, our companies have a strong history of optical performance leadership, stretching back to the world’s first terabit super-channel trial almost seven years ago,” notes Mattias Fridström, chief evangelist at Telia Carrier. “Infinera’s 600G technology can be readily deployed across our existing FlexILS networks, helping us to increase fiber capacity while satisfying our customers’ growing capacity requirements,” he adds.

“Infinera continues to deliver optical engine innovation on a rapid cadence,” says Infinera’s chief technical officer Parthi Kandappan. “Our ICE4 optical engines are delivering industry-leading performance in deployed networks from metro data-center interconnect to subsea, and this 600G trial showcases the next step function in ICE performance, leading toward 800G wavelengths and beyond in the future.”

Infinera plans to deliver commercial products capable of 600G per wavelength in early 2019.

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