1Tbps Transmission 1100 Kilometers New Record: Terabit Era Is Getting Closer!

Recently, optical technology leader Windstream Wholesale and secure connectivity leader Cisco (Cisco) once again demonstrated a breakthrough in transmission speeds: the two sides in the United States up to 1,100 kilometers between Miami and Jacksonville line, the industry's first 1Tbps wavelength fiber optic link of the highest speed transmission.
The test was carried out on Windstream's Intelligent Converged Optical Network (ICON) route. In addition to the fiber optic transmissions at the key wavelengths mentioned above, the parties achieved 800G over a distance of 1,387 kilometers of communications over a hybrid set of fibers passing through Tallahassee between Miami and Atlanta; and an impressive 600G over a distance of 2,774 kilometers of fiber between Miami and Atlanta.
The test utilized a Cisco NCS 1014 C-band 2.4T WDM transponder line card with Acacia's Coherent Interconnect Module CIM 8 (the industry's first 1.2Tbps panel pluggable coherent solution) device. This high-speed transmission successfully demonstrated the superior performance of the CIM 8 and was validated on a third-party line system (150Ghz channel).
According to Cisco, the CIM 8 is designed to transmit at speeds up to 1.2Tbps, powered by their 8th generation Jannu DSP ASIC. In addition to the speed upgrade, power consumption is significantly lower compared to the current generation.
Windstream Wholesale has invested heavily in its multi-vendor ICON network infrastructure. This particular set of demos is part of a longstanding partnership with Cisco, and the results of the past have been directly integrated into their operations today. In fact, only 10 months ago, they achieved over 541 miles of 1Tbps transmission between Dallas and Tulsa over the same vendor's equipment. Today, they have apparently doubled that speed.
In other words, it's likely that Windstream will have a 1Tbps wavelength transmission solution in operation in the near future. The results of the trials have shown that it is feasible to implement a disaggregated network on a production network and have demonstrated that interoperability between the vendor's transponders and third-party line systems is achievable. This achievement is not only an industry first, but also another important milestone in the long-term partnership between Windstream Wholesale, Cisco and Acacia.
This tremendous achievement is further evidence of our commitment to technology leadership and networking expertise," said John Nishimoto, Windstream Wholesale's senior vice president for product, marketing and strategy. We developed ICON to provide multi-vendor flexibility and seamless integration of the latest optimization technologies into our disaggregated network. This achievement reinforces our 800G wave strategy and provides improved design and network planning options for 100G and 400G solutions."
Bill Gartner, Senior Vice President, Optical Systems and Optics, Cisco, said, "Working with industry leaders such as Windstream, Cisco continues to demonstrate consistent technology innovations utilizing the Acacia and Cisco NCS 1014 platforms."