Another ‘world first’ claimed as Telstra runs 1.6Tbps fibre trial

The trial was conducted with Ericsson and ran alongside live traffic services across the central Telstra InfraCo fibre route between Melbourne and Canberra, which is apparently one of the highest capacity routes in Australia. 

Telstra claims that achieving 1.6Tbps through a single optical channel over 700km is a world first milestone – and there are plenty of those going around when it comes to high-speed optical trials.

We’re told this one was 200km longer than the previous record for highest capacity on a single wavelength.

The trial used Ciena’s WL6e, which uses 3nm silicon technology and apparently doubles Telstra’s existing fibre wavelength capacity from 800Gbps to 1.6Tbps. Telstra says it will use this tech to support 800G connectivity across long haul infrastructure, and integrate it as part of the Telstra InfraCo intercity fibre network.

“This critical technology will allow us to further future proof our networks by investing in technology to benefit our customers and enabling us to keep up with the data demands of Australians,” said Sanjay Nayak, Telstra Fixed Engineering Executive. “To put this trial into perspective 1.6Tb/s of bandwidth through a single wavelength is the same bandwidth as over 300,000 Netflix HDs streams going at the same time. Or you can download 17PB in a day which is more than 5 billion songs or over 12 billion photos. It is a 100 per cent increase per channel capacity and a 14.3 percent increase in capacity per system.”

Emilio Romeo, Head of Ericsson Australia and New Zealand added: "This achievement with Telstra and Ciena is a testament to the power of collaboration and innovation in optical networking technology. By leveraging Ciena’s advanced 3nm chipset technology, we've successfully doubled the capacity of Telstra’s wavelengths, paving the way for more robust, high-capacity networks to support the ever-growing data demands. This milestone is not only a significant step forward for Telstra but also a glimpse into the future of telecommunications globally, as we continue to push the boundaries of what's possible in network performance and scalability."

There has been a flurry of announcements claiming speed records of particular permutations by kit vendors and operators in various combinations of late. Last week Nokia partnered with Greek operator group OTE for a field trial on the latter’s national dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) network, and they claim to have clocked 800Gbps on a single channel over 2580 km and 900Gbps over 1290 km, which we’re told is a record.  

In July, China Telecom, along with some others, said it launched the world's first live single-wavelength 1.2Tbps hollow-core fibre transmission system with unidirectional capacity over 100Tbitps. It was deployed over a transmission distance of 20km in the live network of something called the All-Optical Network Technology and Application in the Intelligent Computing Era seminar of the CCSA TC618/NGOF.

Meanwhile Nokia and Frontier claimed to be the first in North America to trial broadband speeds of 100G, 50G, 25G, and 10G passive optical networks (PON) technologies at the same time on the latter’s existing network. The firms said in the release that the trial demonstrated how existing decades old fibre can be adapted for use with more modern technologies.