BT and Ciena Trial 800Gbps Fibre Optic Super Channel in the UK

Network specialist Ciena and BT claim to have conducted the “world’s first” successful trials of 800G Super-Channel technology using the operators optical core network infrastructure in the United Kingdom, which delivered “Terabit-rate speeds” over a 410km link between their Adastral Park facility in Ipswich and the BTTower in London.

The operator claims that its trial, which was conducted in March 2013, equates to the simultaneous transmission of “seven High Definition DVDs in a single second”. Furthermore Ciena, which has had its technology in BT’s core network since 2003, states that the speeds have gone even higher “in a laboratory environment“.

François Locoh-Donou, Ciena’s Senior VP of Global Products, said:

“BT’s future-proof network will enable it to stay ahead of the competition and continue to offer customers cutting-edge services, while minimising its overall cost-base and carbon footprint. With this collaboration agreement, we can further deepen our relationship and work together to build service-enabling and highly-programmable networks, leveraging Ciena’s entire product portfolio to jointly develop ground-breaking services and applications for BT’s customers.”

BT’s chief network architect, Neil McRae, added that the “trials prove we’re heading in the right direction, and we’re very proud of our role in this latest milestone in the history of communications.” The move means that BT is in a better position to continuing improving the capacity of its network as demand rises.

It’s understood that the trial itself made use of WaveLogic 3 transceivers (both single and super-channel techniques) on a high Polarization Mode Dispersion (PMD) fibre link, which is where two different polarizations of light fail to travel at the same speed and thus limit the links top performance. In this case the old link was previously deemed unsuitable for normal 10G service speeds.

The trial also tested 400G of traffic using 16QAM modulation channels, which conveys data by changing the amplitude of two carrier waves. Telefónica and Infinera conducted a similar test during February 2013 in which ten 1Tbps channels were bonded together (here). Apparently BT’s test also operated flawlessly alongside adjacent 40G and 100G QPSK-based wavelengths.