The trial took place across Telstra Global’s dedicated fibre pair within the S5 segment of the AAG Hawaii to California, spanning 4,200km across the Pacific.
Infinera’s DTN-X platform was deployed on the route and a prototype super-channel line card enabled with the vendor’s FlexCoherent solution.
The SD-FEC enabled higher modulation formats to be used on the route, potentially allowing Telstra to increase the available capacity and in turn the commercial life of the cable.
Infinera said that its SD-FEC technology has the potential to double the transmission capacity of existing submarine cables.
“Over the past few months we've shown that a PIC-based long-haul super-channel implementation can deal with record-breaking levels of PMD impairments in fibre; deliver a full 8Tbs of capacity on Dispersion Shifted Fibre that service providers might have written off as useless, and now with Telstra's help we've shown that with the addition of SD-FEC, this technology is capable of being deployed on some of the longest and most challenging cable routes in the world,” said David Welch, co-founder and CSO at Infinera.
Telstra Global forecasts more than 60% annual growth in its trans-Pacific submarine cable traffic over the next three years.
“We are delighted by the results of this field trial and this shows further increased capacity potential for Telstra Global's leading submarine cable plant. Our continuing focus on cutting edge technologies will enable us to continue to deliver new services to our customers and meet their future capacity needs with a long term, reliable offering,” said Martijn Blanken, MD of Telstra Global.
