Deutsche Telekom Tests Lucent Technologies' 40-Gigabit Optical Technology That Is Four Times Faster Than Today's Systems - Deutsche Telekom A.G., Lucent Technologies Inc - Brief Article

Fiber Optics Business, July 15, 2001

Deutsche Telekom has successfully tested Lucent Technologies' 40-Gbps optical networking technology over a distance of 72 miles (116 km). The results of the 40G test, which achieved transmission speeds four times faster than today's commercialiy available systems, showed that Lucent's next-generation technology can be used in existing optical networks and can work over long distances.

Lucent's 40G system is based on time division multiplexing technology (OC-768/STM-256), which transmits voice, video, and data, using a single laser over a single wavelength of light. About eight million one-page e-mails can be transmitted with this technology in just one second.

Designed by Lucent's Bell Labs, the 40G system operates over a variety of fiber types and enables carriers to increase network speed and maximize fiber use, while also reducing cost, equipment, and space requirements. For instance, the 40G technology would save space in telecommunications centers because one system offers the same capacity as four lOG systems. In addition, the system requires only a quarter of the optical fibers needed for four 10G systems. Both of these aspects would reduce per-bit transmission costs.

In the Deutsche Telekom test, the 40G system was tested on standard single-mode fiber, which is the most common form of installed fiber around the world. Besides producing superb transmission quality, the system itself also operated error-free.

As bandwidth requirements increase, operators could achieve even greater data transmission rates if 40G technology were used with a dense wavelength division multiplexing system (DWDM). DWDM technology, pioneered by Bell Labs scientists, increases network capacity by transmitting multiple wavelengths -- or colors -- of light across a single fiber, with each wavelength carrying a distinct stream of information. As a result, a combined DWDM/40G system could produce a transmission capacity in the multi-Terabit range per optical fiber.

Lucent's 40G technology was developed by an international team of Bell Labs researchers and engineers in Nuremberg, Germany; Huizen, the Netherlands; and several US locations: New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Illinois.

Bell Labs holds more than 2,500 patents in the field of optical technology alone. In 1995, Lucent became the first company to provide a DWDM system. Lucent also led the way in all-optical high-capacity transmission.

The first WaveStar LambdaRouter, the world's highest capacity, all-optical switch, was sold to a Lucent client earlier this month.

In the LambdaRouter, microscopic mirrors instantly direct and route the optical signals between the optical fibers of a network. Because this process takes place without optical electrical-optical signal conversion, it cuts operating costs by up to 25 percent.