Telstra announced it achieved 1.6 Tbps through a single optical channel over 700 km in collaboration with Ericsson, utilising Ciena's WaveLogic 6 Extreme (WL6e). This trial was conducted alongside live traffic services across the central Telstra InfraCo fiber route between Melbourne and Canberra, one of the highest-capacity routes in Australia. Ciena's WL6e leverages 3nm silicon technology, doubling Telstra's existing fiber wavelength capacity from 800 Gbps to 1.6 Tbps.
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Ciena's WL6e
With WL6e, Telstra will enhance its service offerings to support 800G connectivity across long-haul infrastructure, including integration into the Telstra InfraCo intercity fiber network. This trial is over 200 km longer than the previous record for the highest capacity on a single wavelength, according to the Australian operator's recent announcement.
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Enhancing Service Offerings
"This critical technology will allow us to further future-proof our networks by investing in technology that benefits our customers and enables us to meet the data demands of Australians," said a Telstra Fixed Engineering Executive.
"To put this trial into perspective, 1.6 Tbps of bandwidth through a single wavelength is equivalent to over 300,000 Netflix HD streams occurring simultaneously. Alternatively, you can download 17 PB in a day, which is more than 5 billion songs or over 12 billion photos. This represents a 100 percent increase in capacity per channel and a 14.3 percent increase in capacity per system," added the executive.
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Trial Results on Network
According to the official release, this deployment has doubled the capacity of Telstra's wavelengths, paving the way for high-capacity networks to support growing data demands. The trial was completed on Telstra's production network, utilising its InfraCo central route between the Lonsdale Exchange in Victoria and the Barton Exchange in the ACT.
