Optus hits 800 Gbps in field network trial

Optus has reached optical transport speeds of 800 Gbps in a live network trial on its 400 Gbps system on both coastal and inland routes between Sydney and Melbourne.

The trial took place with Nokia, utilising its sixth-generation super-coherent Photonic Service Engine, or PSE-6s, supporting 2.4Tbps capacity per card.

The telco claimed it is the first carrier in the Australian market to reach these speeds.

"The incredible speeds we can hit between Sydney and Melbourne and our ability to demonstrate our spectrum sharing capabilities are a true testament of the benefits that lay ahead, and our commitment to the Australian market seeing they happen, alongside Nokia," said John Castro, VP for wholesale and satellite at Optus.

"By providing super-fast connectivity between Sydney and Melbourne, our two major economic hubs, Optus will demonstrate our commitment to pushing the boundaries to ensure our customers have world-class connectivity and speeds all the way to Perth."

Additionally, Optus has handed Nokia an upgrade project for its Melbourne-Adelaide-Perth route, which will enable unregulated end-to-end services over a distance of 4,000 kilometres at a minimum of 400 Gbps per channel.

This upgrade will utilise Nokia's PSE-6s solution, which can provide a total capacity of up to 28.8 Tbps over the route and is due to be operational sometime next year.

"At Nokia, we are proud of continuing our long-lasting partnership with Optus, supporting the incredible traffic growth that is being observed in the global and local wholesale market," said John Harrington, senior VP of Asia Pacific and Japan at Nokia.

"We believe with PSE-6s-enabled optical transport solutions, Optus will be well positioned to address the continuous market expansion. With support for speeds ranging from 400 Gbps to 2.4Tbs, Nokia’s solution will deliver connectivity over subsea, long haul, regional and metro/data centre interconnect distances with the most power-efficient capability in the industry."