Ciena and Arelion achieve 1.6 Tb/s optical transmission milestone

That said, the WL6e is not for individuals, it’s for moving data at the carrier level. Service provider networks are always under constant pressure for more speed and backhaul bandwidth, particularly now as 5G mobile data access continues to grow data demands.

The challenges and standards behind 1.6 Tb/s

Xenos noted that network providers are looking for transport solutions that can efficiently transport IEEE-compliant 400 Gigabit Ethernet/800 Gigabit Ethernet client traffic across any path in the network.  

“WL6e is the first solution that can transport 800G client traffic across any link in the network without regeneration,” she said. “Examples include 800G across 3,000km terrestrial links or 800G across transpacific distances.”

The Ciena technology is an optical data transport, and it can integrate with electrical ethernet data transport in data center networks.

“WL6e transceivers can accept a mix of 100GE/200GE/400GE/800GE/OTUCn on the client side and carry it across long distances over an optical network at speeds up to 1.6Tb/s per wavelength,” Xenos said.

Getting that level of performance is not a trivial task. Xenos said that in order to achieve single carrier 1.6Tb/s coherent transmission, 200GBaud design is required. She explained that 200GBaud means the coherent signal can transmit 200 billion symbols per second, where each symbol is comprised of multiple bits.