Australia's NBN Co has completed a successful trial of 1Tbps super-channel transmission over a 1,066km fiber ring.
The state-owned company tasked with rolling out Australia's National Broadband Network used Coriant's FlexiGrid technology for the trial.
The trial demonstrated a 1Tbps super-channel transmission in a 369GHz grid. NBN Co said the results show a greater than 35% improvement in spectral efficiency.
Analysis of the results indicates that placing the super-channel in three separate C-band locations and improving spectral efficiency would provide a maximum theoretical transmission capacity of 13Tbps over existing hardware and fiber – and over a theoretical distance of 1,600km.
NBN Co CTO Gary McLaren said the trial was conducted to evaluate long-term enhancements to the NBN transit network, and the capacity for the NBN to scale as Australian traffic demands increase.
“We are pleased with the results of the trial with Coriant over our Transit Network. It highlights how established backbone infrastructure can be upgraded with sophisticated optical and electronic equipment to provide extra capacity for the future needs of the NBN,” he said.
Under orders from the new government, NBN Co is in the process of transitioning from a rollout model involving the almost exclusive use of FTTP technology to one involving a mixture of last-mile technologies including FTTB, FTTN and VDSL.