Ericsson and Telstra debut Ciena low-latency optical technology

Networking giant Ericsson and Aussie operator Telstra have unveiled a new optical network that uses Ciena’s WaveLogic 3 technology to raise the bar for non-regenerated optical transmission.

The new network runs between Melbourne, Sydney and Perth, which is a round trip of over 10,000 km, and the lack of any regeneration nodes allows lower latency and higher capacity. Apparently it even qualifies for a Guinness World Record for the ‘longest un-regenerated terrestrial fibre optic link.’

“This new optical technology enables Telstra to provide Australia’s lowest latency link between Sydney and Perth – key access points critical for trans-Australian and international telecommunications,” said David Robertson, Director of Transport and Routing Engineering at Telstra. “This high-performance link provides Telstra’s customers differentiation for applications which require high-speed and low latency, such as financial trading or cloud based offerings.”

“By not having intermediary optical and data regeneration, cost and latency performance is optimized,” said Arne Sjule, Head of IP Routing at Ericsson. “It’s like an airline passenger having a non-stop long distance flight – time is not wasted without any additional cost. Un-regenerated transmission of over 10,000 km provides improved resiliency options. Traffic can now be re-routed over extremely long distances when needed, for example in unforeseen natural disaster scenarios.”

This news comes the day after it was announced that Telstra had also partnered with Ericsson over video delivery by taking on its Media Delivery Network managed CDN service – the first operator to do so.

“We will work collaboratively with Telstra to effectively leverage both the Media Delivery Network solution and their core network functionality to develop strategic content delivery and optimization services, supporting the growth of Telstra’s media business,” said Ove Anebygd, Head of Solution Area Media at Ericsson.

Lastly Telstra announced today that is has extended its new global SDN platform into the optical layer, enabling up to 100G bandwidth and automated fault restoration across its global Points of Presence.

“Extending our global PEN platform into the optical layer is the natural next step in our SDN strategy and by providing this infrastructure on demand, we’re able to significantly shorten the provisioning cycle times and better meet our customers’ growing high-bandwidth needs, said Jim Clarke, Telstra’s Director of Marketing, Product and Pricing.