Huawei has completed an industry leading optical DWDM field trial with line rates per single-wavelength 1.66 Tb/s in a high capacity data center interconnect (DCI) scenario. Together with a European tier 1 operator, this research trial was performed on 96.5km of field-deployed standard G.652 fiber using EDFA-only amplification. A total of 34 channels were transmitted with 150GHz spacing for a total fiber capacity of more than 56Tb/s and a spectral efficiency of higher than 11bit/s/Hz.

Additional demonstrations featured single-wavelength transmission of 1.77Tb/s over 60km, 1.65Tb/s over 120km and 1.6Tb/s over 180km. This record-breaking achievement was accomplished with Huawei’s advanced channel-matched shaping (CMS) algorithms. It includes the advanced non-linear digital signal processing and advanced modulation based on 400QAM using enhanced probabilistic constellation shaping (ePCS). Particularly, the use of deep neural networks powered algorithms achieves superior performance over state-of-the-art signal processing.

In a further display, a metro network demonstration was performed, showcasing 1.28 Tb/s net bitrate per single-wavelength in a ROADM-based metro network link of 452km G.652 fiber also employing EDFA-only amplification.

Dr. Maxim Kuschnerov, Director of the Optical and Quantum Communications Laboratory said: “We achieved an important milestone towards the era of 1.6 Terabit per second transmission in DCI and metro networks. Furthermore, deploying a Super-C+L band line system, the total fiber capacity could exceed 100Tb/s and provide sufficient room for future network growth driven by the rapid expansion of cloud services.”