ZTE Boasts 400G Breakthrough

Chinese vendor says it's not just how far a signal goes, but how fat the pipe is too – although both claims might be challenged...

By Ray Le Maistre, Light Reading
June 07, 2013
URL: http://www.lightreading.com/long-haul-wdm-equipment/zte-boasts-400g-breakthrough/240156239

ZTE Corp. sent a bullish optical challenge to the likes of Alcatel-Lucent, Ciena Corp., Coriant, Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. and Infinera Corp. Friday by announcing what it is calling an "industry first" in the 400Gbit/s market.

The Chinese vendor says it has "completed data signaling at speeds of 400 Gbit/s over a distance of more than 5,000 kilometers" using a WDM system with 100GHz channel spacing and a "unique frequency algorithm to overcome the issue of signal degradation," which is significant in long-distance transmissions.

"Data was transmitted through 25 reconfigurable optical add-drop multiplexer (ROADM) nodes without an electrical repeater," the vendor boasts, before adding, "the communications capacity of ZTE's system is double that of the most advanced systems currently available in the industry."

This might sound like a brave claim but ZTE, which claimed a separate 400Gbit/s world record in September 2012, has reason to be confident about its optical prowess currently, having recently ousted Alcatel-Lucent as the number two optical equipment vendor. (See ZTE Passes Alcatel-Lucent and ZTE Claims 400G Transport First.)

Of course, other vendors might argue with ZTE over its capacity claims, and there may be some dispute over whether ZTE is first with 400Gbit/s over more than 5,000 kilometers. (See AT&T Claims 400G Distance Record.)

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— Ray Le Maistre, Editor-in-Chief, Light Reading