Nokia and Zayo achieve new North American distance record

Nokia and Zayo have announced the successful completion of a live field trial of Nokia’s sixth-generation Photonic Service Engine super-coherent optics (PSE-6s), demonstrating a North American transmission record of 800Gb/s over a single wavelength from LA to El Paso on a 1866km link. The companies also achieved a 1 Tb/s transmission on Zayo’s LA to Phoenix route over 1004km, also using the Nokia PSE-6s. The field trial showcases the power of Nokia’s latest generation of coherent optics and Zayo’s state-of-the-art optical transport network—in providing high-capacity solutions to keep up with soaring global traffic demand resulting from an increasingly digitalized world.

Zayo currently provides the largest and most modern 400G network in North America with over 250 points of presence (PoPs), covering the most in-demand centres. As Zayo continues to invest in the capacity, capability, and sustainability of its optical network to support transport of new 400GE and 800GE services, the trial performance demonstrates the ability of Nokia’s optical technologies to support all three of these areas by increasing spectral/bandwidth efficiency, enabling high-speed client services, and lowering network power consumption.

The trial used Nokia’s PSE-6s implemented in the 1830 PSI-M compact modular transport platform equipped with production-ready DMAT6 line cards. Using the latest 6th generation technology, the 800Gb/s transmission represents a tripling in reach over current 7nm solutions and sets a new North American distance record over a live network. In addition, the 1Tb/s transmission between LA and Phoenix over 150GHz WDM channels shows the ability to reach even higher capacity per wavelength on high-traffic routes.

Aaron Werley, Vice President of Technology at Zayo, said: “As a communications infrastructure leader, Zayo remains at the forefront of network connectivity. We continuously invest in our cutting-edge infrastructure to ensure a future-ready network. The infrastructure projects we have, and continue to complete to advance connectivity between key cities, involves the deployment of new 800G and higher-speed routes. Nokia's PSE-6s coherent technology allows Zayo to offer ever-increasing commercial Wavelength speeds, including enabling our industry-first Waves on Demand offering, so when customers demand innovative, higher-bandwidth solutions, the capacity is there for them.”

James Watt, Head of Nokia’s Optical business, said: “Nokia is very pleased with the performance of the PSE-6s in the trial and its ability to enable 800G everywhere and deliver 1T between key cities over long spans at over 1000km. We are delighted to partner with Zayo on this achievement in preparation for growing network demand. With the PSE-6s, the Nokia optical portfolio pushes the limits of super-coherent performance to deliver massive network scale and service reach while ensuring more sustainable growth.”