Telekom Austria trials Alcatel-Lucent 400G on existing fiber

Telekom Austria has completed a test of 400G between Zagreb in Croatia and Ljubljana in Slovenia using Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE: ALU) equipment over its existing fiber facilities.

This network trial is about being prepared. The service provider wanted to see how its backbone network could handle upcoming traffic increases from its wholesale carrier customers that serve bandwidth-intensive applications including banking applications, customer relationship management (CRM) and System Analysis and Program development (SAP) systems.

For this demonstration, the service provider used Alcatel-Lucent's 1830 Photonic Service Switch (PSS) and the Photonic Service Engine (PSE). Besides upping total capacity up to 15.4 Terabytes, Telekom Austria claimed that the 400G transport is reducing the power requirement by 47 percent and space requirements by 65 percent vs. current 100G technology.

Its trial with 400G should not be all that surprising as it previously introduced a 100G-based network in Europe last spring. Not long after launching that service with key routes between Frankfurt and Sophia it immediately attracted three large customers.

By building out a 100G-capable network, Telekom Austria has created multi-functional backbones for the eight markets it serves directly and through carrier partnerships throughout Central and Eastern Europe (CEE).  

Being able to announce this trial is also important for Alcatel-Lucent, particularly as it looks to establish more momentum in both the emerging 100G and 400G market segments.

Besides Telekom Austria, which is one of Alcatel-Lucent's existing customers, the vendor conducted 400G trials with Australia's Nextgen Group and SaskTel.

For more:
- see the release

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