Telia Norway and Ciena achieve first live 1.6 Tb/s data transmission in Nordics

Telia Norway and Ciena have celebrated a key technology milestone and industry first in the Nordics. Powered by Ciena’s WaveLogic 6 Extreme (WL6e) technology, the trial achieved 1.6 Tb/s through a single optical channel between Oslo and Trondheim over one of the highest capacity routes in the country. This accomplishment set impressive achievements for both distance – 656km – as well as for number of reconfigurable optical add-drop multiplexers (ROADMs) – seven.

“Global businesses are increasingly seeing Norway as a highly desirable destination for constructing data centers, as we have an advantageous combination of affordable energy and favorable climate conditions,” said Georg Svendsen, CTO, Telia Norway. “This technology milestone with Ciena’s WaveLogic 6 shows our ability to build a more robust and scalable network that can handle growing bandwidth demands and help push forward Norway’s digital progress.”

“This impressive achievement with Telia Norway builds on a strong track record of Ciena industry-firsts in coherent optics,” said Virginie, Hollebecque, Vice President, EMEA, Ciena. “WL6e can help Telia Norway create the foundation of a new optical fabric designed to support the burgeoning demands of AI and data-centric applications. WL6 can also help position Telia Norway to support the increasing interest in Norway as a prime location for data center construction, capitalizing on the country's affordable energy and favourable climate.”

Ciena’s WL6e is the industry’s first high-bandwidth coherent transceiver using state-of-the-art 3nm silicon to drive significant economic benefits for operators, including a 50% reduction in space and power per bit. WL6e provides massive 1.6 Tb/s, single-carrier wavelengths for metro ROADM deployments and maximizes network coverage for 800G connectivity.