Huawei, a leading global information and communications technology (ICT) solutions provider, today announced the release of a 400G WDM prototype for ultra-long-haul transmission at the OFC 2014 Conference. The innovative prototype employs Faster Than Nyquist (FTN) technology to increase the 400G transmission distance beyond 3000 km, representing a significant breakthrough in the high-speed WDM transmission field.
Huawei’s FTN technology breaks the limit of the Nyquist sampling theorem, which defines a maximum transmission speed for a fixed channel bandwidth. By utilizing spectrum compression and signal distortion compensation algorithms, the FTN technology achieves long-haul transmission of high baud-rate signals on existing networks (similar to transmitting a large file that has been compressed, which requires less bandwidth than transmitting the original file).
The technology enables two types of 400G WDM solutions based on 100GHz channel spacing — a short-haul solution and the ultra-long-haul solution unveiled at OFC 2014. The ultra-long-haul solution, which applies to backbone transmission, adopts 2SC-PDM-QPSK modulation and supports a record transmission distance of over 3000 km. The short-haul solution, which applies to metropolitan area network (MAN) transmission, adopts 1SC-PDM-16QAM modulation and allows high-quality 400G transmission over a single carrier wave. Huawei’s single-carrier 400G solution was recently tested on EXATEL’s live network in Poland.
“Huawei has been investing heavily in the high-speed WDM field. The new FTN technology introduced in the prototype exceeds traditional technological limits to deliver ultra-long-haul 400G transmission, breaking new ground for the 400G industry,”said Jack Wang, President of the Huawei transmission network product line.
Huawei has deployed over 200 commercial 100G networks worldwide and made several breakthroughs in the beyond-100G field, getting operators ready for the upcoming digital tsunami. In June 2012, Huawei and KPN International completed the world’s first pan-European 400G field trial. In December 2012, Huawei conducted the world’s first 2T field trial with Vodafone, achieving 2 Tbit/s transmission over a distance of 3,325 km.
In March 2013, Huawei unveiled a 40T WDM prototype, the highest capacity in the industry, at the OFC/NFOEC 2013 event in the US. In December 2013, Huawei and EXATEL Poland completed the world’s first field trial of a single-carrier 400G system. The 400G WDM prototype unveiled at OFC 2014 again demonstrates that operators’ existing optical network infrastructure has the potential to achieve ultra-long-haul transmission of 400 Gbit/s or even 1 Tbit/s signals.