Photonic finish: Shaw/Alcatel-Lucent move 17.6 terabits in a second

CALGARY, ALTA – Think a 100G network is fast? That’s so two years ago. Shaw Communications, in conjunction with Paris-based Alcatel-Lucent, announced today it has completed a successful field trial – the first in North America – of 400 gigabit-per-second (Gbps) data transmission over an existing optical link carrying live network traffic. The trial ran over a 400-kilometre route between Calgary and Edmonton in Alberta using Shaw’s current transport network, designed for speeds up to 100 Gbps. Using Alcatel-Lucent’s 1830 PSS with the 400G Photonic Service Engine (PSE), Shaw says the technology doubled the capacity of its existing high-capacity network...