Nokia and Orange clock 800 Gbps in transatlantic transmission trial

The trial was ‘conducted under challenging real-world network conditions’ – by which they are presumably referring to the Atlantic ocean seabed. It apparently shows Orange’s ability to increase its existing optical network capacity to support end-to-end 400GE and 800GE services.

The Dunant transatlantic subsea cable is a ‘hybrid’ terrestrial and subsea cable and traffic is able to reach four different points of presence in the Paris region, which the firm says gives more connection options to wholesale customers.

The trial also demonstrated 700Gbps over a total link distance of 7,345km from Virginia Beach to Paris, versus 300G also in 2021. The terrestrial links consisted of nine spans of Orange’s existing fibre network, through multiple cascaded reconfigurable optical add/drop multipliers (ROADMs), using 150GHz WDM spectrum channels, we’re told.

“This trial demonstrates Orange’s commitment to supporting ever-greater network scale and new high-bandwidth services across our existing global network, which combined with our subsea networks truly powers global connectivity for our customers,” said Jean-Louis Le Roux, Vice President International Networks at Orange. “We are pleased to be the first operator to validate Nokia’s latest generation of super coherent optics in a subsea application as an important enabler to our constant need for network upgrades, with high spectral efficiency, sustainability and operational deployment flexibility.”

James Watt, Head of the Optical Networks Division at Nokia, said: “We are very pleased with the success of Nokia’s high-performance PSE-6s in this trial and delighted to continue to work with Orange in support of their network upgrade plans. As data volumes grow unabated worldwide, innovation in optical networks is critical to stay far ahead of the curve. The PSE-6 super-coherent optics supercharge the Nokia optical portfolio, delivering massive network scale and service reach while ensuring sustainable growth with power efficiency.”

Ultimately the trial is supposed to demonstrate an ability to expand the capacity and spectral efficiency of existing subsea cable systems while reducing the number of coherent optics needed by 33%, and lower total power consumption compared with existing ‘coherent’ optics.