France Telecom (News 
- Alert)-Orange and Alcatel-Lucent deployed the world’s first ever live 400 Gbps-per-wavelength optical link, a groundbreaking milestone for long-distance terrestrial network technology.
RENATER, the Public Interest Group that manages the telecommunications network in France and a customer of Orange Business Services (News - Alert), is charged with testing the new link that is capable of enabling signal transmission up to 17.6 Terabits per second and four times more bandwidth than existing technologies in real life scenarios.
Patrick Donath, managing director of RENATER, commented, “As part of our innovation program, we plan to test this optical fiber link in real conditions by using it to route traffic across one of our main backbone arteries between Paris and Lyon. This link transports the bulk of France’s scientific data that passes through our network. This pilot phase also aims to test the latest switching equipment supplied by major OEMs on a network running at this capacity and will enable us the anticipate the architecture of RENATER’s network in the coming years. A 400 Gbps network is an important step forward for the networks and research projects of tomorrow”.
France Telecom-Orange asserted that the new deployment can enhance network performance and cater to the rising demands among mass market and business customers for high-capacity bandwidth and additional flexibility.
Alcatel-Lucent (News - Alert) claimed that its 400G PSE chip can be deployed in a broad range of network configurations – from metro to regional to ultra-long haul. The 400 Gbps optical link connecting Paris and Lyon should aid in France Telecom-Orange’ efforts to develop a super-fast infrastructure that can support the emergence of new uses, such as multimedia content, social networking and the cloud, and to guarantee transmission quality while keeping costs down.
Edited by
Ashley Caputo
