Telefonica and Infinera Demo 10Tbps Super Channel Fibre Optic Network

Network operator Telefónica and Infinera claim to have demonstrated the “first” super-channel fibre optic network running at a speed of 10Tbps (Terabits per second) via ten 1Tbps channels and a whole heap of both old and new modulation methods combined.

The press release is sadly a little vague on details, which makes it hard to construct a balanced comparison against similar solutions, although we do know that the demo used Infinera’s FlexCoherent™ technology to realize QPSK and 16 QAM super-channels (i.e. extending the fibre capacity and signal reach).

FlexCoherent is a light modulation method that works off a single line card, while Quadrature Phase Shift Keying (QPSK) has been around for awhile and allows two bits to be modulated at once (i.e. the signal can carry twice as much information as ordinary PSK using the same bandwidth). Finally Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (QAM) is another modulation scheme that conveys data by changing the amplitude of two carrier waves.

Juan Fernandez-Palacios, Telefónica’s Head of Core Network Evolution, said:

“Infinera’s 10 Terabit super-channel transmission and flexible grid transmission have been successfully tested in Telefónica I+D labs. This demonstration shows a promising path to higher capacity and cost effective optical transmission beyond 100Gbps.”

Dave Welch, Infinera Co-founder, added:

“We are extremely pleased with the results of our Terabit Technology Showcase with Telefónica. This demonstration is another proof point that Infinera’s Digital Optical Network solution with photonic integrated circuits is the foundation of next generation optical networks growing beyond 100G.”

Advocates of full fibre optic infrastructure often tout the technology’s potential to future proof telecoms networks and today’s news certainly shows that there’s plenty of room to grow beyond the current 100G and faster standards. Products like this are vital if ISPs are to keep pace with the growing capacity demands being placed on their broadband networks by consumers.

The following lengthy and semi-technical video helps to explains some more of what this is all about.