Zayo & Infinera achieve 1 terabit per second transmission milestone

Zayo and Infinera have announced the successful completion of a live network trial achieving a 1 terabit per second (Tb/s) transmission over a North American route using Infinera's ICE7 optical engine.

The trial took place over a 1,391-kilometre route between Sacramento, California, and Salt Lake City, demonstrating the ability to deliver a single 150GHz wavelength transmission at this speed.

The success of the trial means Zayo will now be able to provide 32 terabits of C-Band capacity on this link, with potential capacity to reach up to 64 terabits using the L-Band.

Zayo, which operates an extensive independent network of 132,000 route miles in North America and a notable 400G network, highlighted its capacity to integrate new technologies like Infinera's ICE7 to meet the increasing demands placed on their infrastructure by AI, cybersecurity, and enterprise communications.

Infinera's ICE7 optical engine employs a 5-nm Complementary Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor (CMOS) Digital Signal Processor (DSP) and an advanced high-speed optics system, capable of supporting high-baud-rate transmissions (over 140 Gbaud) and single-wavelength transmission up to 1.2 Tb/s.

This configuration is reported to offer improved capacity-reach alongside reductions in cost per bit, power consumption, and space footprint.

Aaron Werley, Senior Vice President of Engineering at Zayo, expressed satisfaction with the trial, stating, "With the rapid growth in capacity needs due to high-bandwidth applications like AI, Zayo actively seeks innovative solutions to deliver superior performance of our network by increasing capacity, capability, and reach."

"This successful test highlights how Zayo's network is, and will continue to be, well positioned to easily meet increasing customer demands."

"We are pleased with the performance of Infinera's ICE7 optical engine. Technology like this that can easily integrate into our existing infrastructure is critical to Zayo's mission to expand and create capacity across North America in support of our customers' critical connectivity needs."

Paul Crann, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Optical Systems at Infinera, emphasised the importance of the trial's success for the company, saying, "The success of this trial marks a major accomplishment for Infinera as it underscores the power of ICE7's ability to transmit 1 Tb/s high-baud-rate signals across a significant distance, which will be instrumental in driving down network operator costs while meeting the rapidly growing bandwidth demands of their customers."