Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE: ALU) and Nextgen Group are driving more interest in what lies beyond 100G by completing a field trial of 400G on a live network link in Australia.
The duo conducted the trial over a 350 km route between Sydney and Canberra over Nextgen's newly commissioned 100G transport network that currently delivers up to 100G speed services. For this trial, Nextgen used Alcatel-Lucent's 1830 Photonic Service Switch (PSS) with the 400G Photonic Service Engine (PSE).
While this 400G effort is just a trial, it is part of a broader optical network effort Nextgen is taking to support both 100G and 400G services over its network. Some of the potential service the 400G transmission could support would include a mix of high-capacity data center connectivity, streaming video, telepresence applications, and gaming.
"Nextgen is in the midst of a major network upgrade to all Australian capital cities with a high speed optical network optimized for services at 100 Gbit/s and higher and providing increased flexibility and manageability," said Phil Martell, CTO, Nextgen Group, in a release. "The trial is an important step on the path to offering our customers the differentiated services they want in the fastest and most economical way."
One of the highlights of the trial was its Agile Optical Networking capability, which included adaptive 100G/200G/400G transmission on a live network through the live optical channel successfully adapting to different speeds, distances and spectrum.
Nextgen is joining a growing group of service providers conducting 400G trials. KPN, Sprint (NYSE: S), and SaskTel have also conducted similar demonstrations on their networks over the past year using equipment from Huawei, Ciena (Nasdaq: CIEN) and Alcatel-Lucent.
For more:
- see the release
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