In the ongoing optical battle between Ciena and Infinera, Ciena has laid claim to breaking the distance record for 800G.
Ciena teamed up with Canada's Telus to turn up a single 800G wavelength between Toronto and Quebec City that totaled a record-breaking distance of 970 kilometers. Earlier this year, Corning and Infinera announced they had pushed 800 Gbps of data across 800 kilometers.
RELATED: Infinera and Corning turn up 800G across 800 kilometers
While 400G and some 800G deployments are expected to ramp up by the middle of next year, Telus has already started augmenting its network with Ciena's WaveLogic 5 Extreme (WL5e) coherent optical technology, according to a blog post by Ciena's Helen Xenos, who is senior director for product marketing.
Telus' network runs 6,000 kilometers from Victoria, British Columbia to Halifax, Nova Scotia. Its next generation optical network consists of colorless, directionless, contentionless, flexible grid (CDC-F) ROADM architecture with Layer 0 Control Plane, designed to support reliable, fast turn-up and re-route of unpredictable bandwidth demands across the network, according to Xenos.
"Furthermore, it is ready to support new innovations in optical technologies as they become available, including the ability to carry optical channels of any spectrum size across the fiber," Xenos said." This fully flexible, intelligent photonic infrastructure allows for the simple addition of WL5e wavelengths and with that, access to significant cost, footprint and power benefits.
Xenos said in her blog that Telus would start standardizing WaveLogic 5 Extreme on its network for deployment in the near future. Part of the standardization process includes testing the full capabilities of the product to come up with end user service offerings.
In May, Deutsche Telekom Global Carrier laid claim to the first European 800G transmission by partnering with Ciena.
RELATED: Ciena helps Windstream boot-up its new national optical network
Last month, Windstream announced it had picked Ciena for the build-out of its new nationwide optical network, which is slated for turn up in the third quarter of this year.
Windstream's new network, which is called the National Converged Optical Network (NCON), will hook-up Windstream's Tier 1, Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities with major U.S. data centers and cable landing stations. Windstream is also installing Ciena’s Waveserver 5 modular platform, which is powered by its WaveLogic 5 Extreme.
Ciena posts solid Q3 results, but stock falls on coronavirus order concerns
Also on Thursday, Ciena announced its third quarter results. Ciena topped revenue and profit expectations in the third quarter, but saw its stock tumble 7% in pre-market trading due to concerns over order slowdowns related to the Covid-19 pandemic.
For the fiscal third quarter that ended August 1, Ciena reported revenue of $876.7 million, up 1.7% from a year earlier, and ahead of the Wall Street analysts' consensus of $971.8 million. Non-GAAP profit was $1.06 a share, which easily beat the Street consensus of 83 cents per share.
Ciena projected revenue for the fiscal fourth-quarter ending in October to land somewhere in the $800 million to $840 million range, which is below the previous Street consensus of $994 million. Ciena, which plays in both the hardware and software sectors, expects adjusted gross margin of 46% to 48%, down from 48.2% in the third quarter. Adjusted operating expenses are expected to be $255 million to $260 million, which would be a slight increase from $251 million in the third quarter.
"We delivered outstanding financial results in the third quarter, reflecting our continued innovation, market leadership and strong competitive position in an uncertain macro environment," said Ciena President and CEO Gary Smith, in a statement. "Although COVID-related market dynamics have resulted in an orders slowdown and are likely to adversely impact our revenue for a few quarters, we are confident in our ability to continue executing on our strategy and expanding our market leadership."