Shaw used Alcatel-Lucent’s optical technology to increase data transmission over a 400km route between Calgary and Edmonton in Alberta, Canada.
Bell Labs, Alcatel-Lucent’s research organisation, developed the optical technology to help carriers meet the increasing demand for bandwidth. During the trial, the solution doubled the capacity of Shaw’s existing network to 17.6Tbps.
Shaw Communications’ president Peter Bissonnette said: “With the growing appetite for services and the proliferation over many different devices, including tablets and connected devices, we were looking for next-generation technologies to help us build a world-leading infrastructure capable of keeping up with broadband demands.”
The successful trial could eventually see additional services integrated into the network, such as high capacity data centre connectivity and better service delivery of streaming video, telepresence applications and gaming.
For Alcatel-Lucent the trial marks its second 400G announcement in the last two months, after it completed a successful 400G trial with France Telecom-Orange in February.
