10:40 AM -- Infinera Corp. is beating its chest with pride today following a demonstration of very high-capacity transmission across a less than optimum network. (See Infinera, Nissho Demo 8Tb Link.)

Working with a local partner, Nissho Electronics, Infinera managed to provision 8 Tbit/s of capacity on an 800-kilometer network comprising Dispersion-Shifted Fiber (DSF), a challenging medium for DWDM systems, it would seem.

Infinera says it was able to achieve this because its DTN-X platform can not only provision multiple 500Gbit/s super-channels, but also because of the Polarization Mode Dispersion (PMD) compensation performance of the product.

The vendor points out that under the same conditions, but using non-DSF fiber and QPSK (Quadrature Phase Shift Keying) on the DTN-X, 8 Tbit/s of capacity could be provisioned beyond 2,500 kilometers, "highlighting the unique challenges of the DSF fiber in Japan."

The vendor talked with Light Reading about its PMD performance, and tests it had been doing with Verizon Communications Inc., a few months ago, noting the potential for squeezing greater capacity and/or reach from older fibers. (See ECOC 2012: Infinera's Tier 1 Traction.)

Infinera already has NTT Communications Corp. as a customer in Japan -- now, in a country with advanced fiber access and well-established 4G services, it will be looking to help other operators work their legacy fiber assets harder and win some new business.

— Ray Le Maistre, International Managing Editor, Light Reading