Windstream Wholesale and Nokia completed a trial of 800 Gigabit Ethernet (GE) service transmission over a single 800 Gbps wavelength on an over 1,386-kilometer link across Windstream’s live network.
The trial used Nokia FP5 IP service routing platforms with 800GE interfaces and Nokia optical transport platforms with 6th generation super coherent Photonic Service Engine (PSE-6s) technology. The demonstration validates the readiness of Windstream Wholesale’s network to provision 800GE business and wholesale services to support soaring customer traffic volumes.
The trial was conducted over Windstream’s Intelligent Converged Optical Network (ICON) backbone connecting Atlanta, Georgia, to Miami, Florida, and leveraging one of Windstream Wholesale’s latest East Coast ICON routes into Florida. The Nokia 7750 Service Router with an 800GE interface was connected to Nokia’s production-ready 1830 PSI-M optical transport platform with PSE-6s linecards operating at 800Gb/s per wavelength over a third-party WDM line system. The trial ran across 16 spans and seven ROADM nodes in the Windstream ICON network and demonstrated the first turn-up of error-free performance at 800G over a long-haul link with 800GE service bandwidth.
This combination of Nokia 800GE routing, shipping since 2022, and 800Gb/s long-haul optical transport enables Windstream Wholesale to efficiently scale network capacity over its backbone and provide wholesale Wave service connectivity at both 400GE and 800GE speeds. In addition, Windstream can utilize fewer client and transponder ports while reducing network power per bit for both IP and optical network layers. A significant industry milestone, this transport and technology breakthrough will undoubtedly pave the way for more advanced and efficient communication networks in the future.
“We are thrilled with the success of this trial and its confirmation of our continued optical technology leadership and readiness to deliver ever-greater bandwidth and service choice across our nationwide footprint,” said John Nishimoto, Windstream Wholesale senior vice president of product marketing and strategy. “We pride ourselves on being ‘fast and flexible,’ and with the combination of Nokia 800GE routing and PSE-6s technology we will continue to lead the marketplace in innovation and excellence.”
Nokia intros 6th gen super-coherent photonic service engine
Nokia introduced its sixth-generation super-coherent photonic service engine, enabling efficient delivery of 400G to 800 Gigabit Ethernet over distances of 2,000km and beyond.
Nokia's PSE-6s, which integrates the latest generation of 5nm coherent digital signal processors (DSPs) with Nokia’s CSTAR silicon photonics, operates at 130 Gbaud for coherent transport at up to 1.2Tb/s of capacity per wavelength. The PSE-6s optical engines support a unique chip-to-chip interface that enables them to be deployed in pairs for 2.4 Tb/s coherent capacity, supporting any combination of high-speed client services including 400 and 800GE.
Nokia says this next generation photonic service engine provides an economic case for 800GE services in metro and datacenter interconnect (DCI) applications, and with reach of 2,000km and beyond, across long-haul networks and trans-oceanic cables. In terms of energy efficiency, the PSE-6 promises network power reduction of up 40% per bit transported.
Significantly, the PSE-6s cards can be deployed across the company's existing 1830 family of optical networking platforms, including the 1830 PSS, 1830 PSI-M and 1830 PSS-x, leveraging existing ITU-T WDM channel plans.
James Watt, Vice President Nokia Optical Networks, said: “Additional capacity often means additional complexity for operators. But PSE-6s is designed to make scale simple. PSE-6s is available as an upgrade across our portfolio. Powerful enough to redefine the frontier of coherent transport, it’s nevertheless simple to deploy, so network operators can take immediate advantage of its scale and performance capabilities. What’s more, these benefits come with lower power consumption per bit, resulting in a better TCO, as well as helping operators meet increasingly aggressive carbon reduction targets.”
