Lumen and Ciena Transmit 1.2 Tbps Wavelength Service Across 3,050 Kilometers
Lumen and Ciena have teamed up for a significant new network trial. They have successfully demonstrated a 1.2Tbps wavelength spanning 3,050k m (more than 1,800 miles) on Lumen’s Ultra-Low-Loss (ULL) fiber network, making it the world’s longest 1.2 terabit non-regenerated signal. The trial leveraged Ciena’s WL6e technology over a 6500 photonic line system and Lumen’s fiber network between Denver and Dallas. They also used 800Gbps routing technology from Juniper’s PTX Series to establish Ethernet and IP services. Lumen’s 400G-enabled network already spans over 78,000 route miles, and the company continues to invest in next-generation fiber to enhance its Ultra-Low Loss (ULL) fiber network, the largest in North America.
Using 800G interfaces, Lumen and Ciena successfully tested and qualified the services to support wavelength, Ethernet, and IP services over the 1.2 Tbps single carrier channel. The live network trial from Denver to Dallas used Ciena’s latest WaveLogic 6 Extreme (WL6e) technology equipped in the Waveserver platform running over a 6500 photonic line system.
“1.2 terabits per second isn’t just about incredible speed and long distances, it’s about the value of enabling the next wave of digital transformation. Lumen is at the forefront of building a next-generation network designed to handle the explosive growth of AI and cloud workloads,” said Dave Ward, Lumen’s chief technology and product officer. “Our investment in increased capacity, powered by Ciena’s WaveLogic 6 technology, provides our hyperscale cloud partners and enterprises with the ultra-high-capacity connectivity needed to scale their AI and cloud applications. With 400G connectivity speeds today and a seamless upgrade path to 1.2 terabits, Lumen stands as the trusted network for AI.”
The trial also showcased the impressive performance and seamless interoperability between Ciena’s Waveserver platform and the Juniper PTX10002-36QDD Packet Transport Router at 800 Gbps over the ultra-long-haul 1.2 Tbps intercity network. By leveraging the performance, flexibility and scalability of the Juniper PTX Series Routers, Lumen successfully established Ethernet and IP services with minimal latency and zero packet loss throughout the tests.
Editor’s Note:
While the companies March 27th joint press release stated the 1.2T bps wavelength transport was a record, AT&T claimed two weeks earlier that it “achieved a long distance world record top speed of 1.6Tb/s over a single wavelength across 296 km of its long haul fiber optic network.” We reported that in this IEEE Techblog post. So yes, it’s a record considering the Lumen network wavelength distance was > 10 times that claimed by AT&T.
Faster connections up to 1.2 Tbps wavelengths means less lag, more capacity and the flexibility to handle the most data-hungry applications across multiple industries:
- AI & Machine Learning
- Hyperscale Cloud & Data Center Interconnects
- Financial Trading and Market Data Transport
- Cybersecurity & AI-powered Threat Intelligence
- Media & Streaming
“At Microsoft, the demand for ultra-high-speed, low-latency connectivity is growing exponentially as AI workloads, cloud applications, and real-time analytics scale,” Lumen said. “Lumen and Ciena’s successful wavelength trial showcases a forward-thinking approach to meeting these growing demands. By enabling more efficient data movement over vast distances, this solution helps us optimize cloud performance, enhance customer experiences, and support the rapid expansion of AI training and inferencing models across our global infrastructure.”
Ciena’s WL6e is the industry’s first high-bandwidth coherent transceiver using state-of-the-art 3nm silicon, capable of carrying capacity up to 1.6 terabits per second per wavelength.
“As the pioneer in high-speed optical innovation, we are dedicated to helping our customers set new benchmarks in network performance and efficiency,” said Brodie Gage, Ciena senior vice president, global products and supply chain. “This industry-first trial with Lumen marks a pivotal step in our efforts to prepare networks for the AI era. Lumen’s network does not stand still. Continuous investment in the latest network technology is essential for keeping up with bandwidth demands today and into the future.”
Additional Resources:
About Lumen Technologies:
Lumen is unleashing the world’s digital potential. We ignite business growth by connecting people, data, and applications – quickly, securely, and effortlessly. As the trusted network for AI, Lumen uses the scale of our network to help companies realize AI’s full potential. From metro connectivity to long-haul data transport to our edge cloud, security, managed service, and digital platform capabilities, we meet our customers’ needs today and as they build for tomorrow.
SOURCE: Lumen Technologies
References:
Analysts weigh in: AT&T in talks to buy Lumen’s consumer fiber unit – Bloomberg
AT&T sets 1.6 Tbps long distance speed record on its white box based fiber optic network
China Telecom with ZTE demo single-wavelength 1.2T bps hollow-core fiber transmission system over 100T bps
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In late 2024, Ciena began shipping a product it calls WaveLogic 6 Extreme, an optical modem capable of delivering up to 1.6 terabits per second for each wavelength. By the time it published its latest quarterly results on March 11, Ciena claimed already to have signed up 25 customers, including telcos and hyperscalers. “We remain the only vendor in the market with a 1.6 terabit WAN [wide area network] solution and expect to hold that lead in this next generation of optical technology for at least two years,” Jim Moylan, Ciena’s chief financial officer, told analysts.
Analysts broadly agree that Ciena is off to a head start. The question is what Nokia and Infinera can do to close the gap and even attempt to leapfrog Ciena in future. But one thing the takeover does is unite companies that had taken very different approaches to the design of digital signal processors (DSPs), a type of semiconductor used in optical communications networks.
“We have silicon photonics, they have indium phosphide,” said Federico Guillén, the president of Nokia’s network infrastructure business group, which houses all the company’s fixed, Internet Protocol (IP) and optical communications assets. “These are two technologies to do chips, DSPs. But some DSPs are better in silicon photonics, and some are better in indium phosphide.”
This seems to rule out any possibility of Nokia preferring one approach over the other for all scenarios and using that strategy to realize more aggressive cuts. A target it deems conservative is to save about €200 million (US$216 million) a year through supply chain efficiencies and some portfolio optimization. It is “not a particular stretch,” said Lundmark last July, pointing out that Nokia and Infinera have a combined cost base of more than €3 billion ($3.3 billion).
“Optical is not so difficult to integrate,” Guillén told Light Reading at the recently ended MWC Barcelona. Last year, more than half of Infinera’s transponders – the network boxes that send and receive optical signals – went into another vendor’s line systems, he said. But there should be room for both silicon photonics and indium phosphide in the future optical mix.
“We’re going to evolve your network into the next-generation platform, which we’re going to do together,” said Guillén, as if speaking to a prospective customer. “We don’t yet know if you’re going to be based on Infinera or Nokia. It depends. And in the meantime, we’re going to provide you transponders from either side that will fit into your network.”
In straddling the silicon photonics and indium phosphide camps, the combined Nokia-Infinera entity will look a lot more like Ciena, which has long claimed that being “technology agnostic” gives it an advantage.
“If someone places all their bets and investment in one technology, such as indium phosphide or silicon photonics, then they are limited in what they can achieve,” wrote Helen Xenos, Ciena’s senior director of portfolio marketing, for a blog about 1.6 terabit-per-second technology published in September 2023. “Being technology agnostic and having in-depth expertise in multiple material systems allows Ciena to be more open-minded to deliver the right solution to market, faster.”
Each has advantages over the other, but a big technical difference is the ability of indium phosphide to generate light. Silicon photonics needs other materials to achieve that, explains Manish Gulyani, the vice president of Nokia’s network infrastructure business. The discrete components Nokia has built, integrated with Infinera’s assets, will give the merged entity a “toolkit” that sits between the technologies, he says. “Now we can do the full vertical integration and build, I would say, the best system for the right application.”
Very broadly, indium phosphide is thought to excel in long-haul communications, with silicon photonics holding cost attractions that stem from the bigger silicon ecosystem. Nokia believes access to both will allow it to address different market segments more easily. “Now we have two DSP teams, we can run in parallel the high performance and the metro-optimized,” said Gulyani.
https://www.lightreading.com/optical-networking/nokia-armed-with-infinera-takes-aim-at-terabit-targets