Verizon and Ciena complete 1.6Tbps fibre trial

The trial took place over a 118 km Boston metro route that consisted of 10 hops and passed through nine reconfigurable optical add-drop multiplexers (ROADMs), according to the release, and it validated the performance of 1.6 Tbps using WL6e in a flexible and dense ROADM environment.

We’re told Ciena’s WL6e is the industry’s first high-bandwidth coherent transceiver using 3nm silicon, and it is supposed to provide a 50% reduction in space and power per bit. Meanwhile Ciena estimates that the power efficiency of WL6e translates to an 86% reduction in emissions per terabit of capacity delivered compared to ‘previously deployed technology.’

As with a vast quantity of telecoms related announcements at the present moment, all this extra speed is pitched as an enabler for AI workloads.

“AI is contingent on analysing billions of data points in real-time on an ongoing basis,” said Adam Koeppe, SVP of Technology Strategy and Planning at Verizon. “Because of the massive, multi-year transformation on Verizon’s network including deploying cloud native architecture from the core to the edge, deploying massive amounts of high-performing spectrum, exponentially increasing the capacity of our fiber infrastructure and deploying advanced technologies and intelligence throughout the network, Verizon’s network provides the ability to power the processes and movements of AI-generated activity.

“This continued advancement of our fiber network will further position us to be the provider of choice for AI workloads now and in the future.”

Brodie Gage, Senior Vice President, Global Products & Supply Chain, Ciena added: “Ciena’s WL6e is designed to cater to AI traffic growth and the continuing surge in bandwidth-intensive applications. WL6e uses coherent DSP innovations to provide the highest capacity over fiber, which will support Verizon’s throughput and capacity goals, supporting more traffic and faster speeds than ever before.”

Meanwhile Verizon announced on Friday that it has deployed a couple of Open RAN based Distributed Antenna Systems (DAS) systems using Samsung and Commscope equipment. The operator said they are the first DAS systems commercially deployed in its network using Open RAN interfaces between the various components of the cellular Radio Access Network from different vendors, as opposed to using one supplier.