Apollo, Alcatel-Lucent send 7.2 Tbps across transatlantic submarine system

Submarine network operator Apollo and Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU) say they have sent 7.2 Tbps per fiber pair across the Apollo South undersea cable system that connects France to the United States. The optical transmissions ran a distance of 6,500 km.

The 7.2 Tbps was an aggregate of 100 Gbps wavelengths and represented a 9X increase of the submarine cable system’s original design capacity. The two parties recently upgraded Apollo North, which connects the UK to the US, with 100-Gbps technology as well.

The 7.2-Tbps demonstration used the Alcatel-Lucent 1620 Light Manager submarine line terminal equipment equipped with coherent transmission technology, including advanced forward error correction and proprietary modulation and pulse shaping techniques. The system was tested fully loaded with 80 wavelengths modulated at 100 Gbps across the fully spectrum, using a flexible modulation scheme that Alcatel-Lucent says matches transmission format to line performance.

"Fully loading all bands on Apollo South was a substantial undertaking which Alcatel-Lucent completed with a minimum of fuss and no customer disruption," said Richard Elliot, managing director of Apollo. "Proving the current maximum capacity of 7.2 Tbps per fiber pair has clarified what we expected to be the case, that Apollo could carry around four times the current entire Atlantic traffic in use today on all cables. This cable system, which has proved to be the most reliable Atlantic system ever, by a long way, has massive expansion capability leaving it well placed for the foreseeable future."

For more information on high-speed transmission systems and suppliers, visit the Lightwave Buyer's Guide.