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Huawei, Proximus Demo 1Tb/sec Optical Network Transmission

Posted by timothy on from the speed-of-light dept.

Amanda Parker writes: Proximus and Huawei have demonstrated speeds of 1 Terabit per second (Tbps) in an optical trial. The speed, which equates to the transmission of 33 HD films in a second, is the first outcome of the partnership between the two companies which was formed in January. The trial was conducted over a 1,040 kilometre fibre link using an advanced 'Flexgrid' infrastructure with Huawei's Optical Switch Node OSN 9800 platform.

40 comments

  1. Define hd... by oic0 · · Score: 1

    Might move 33 dvds but I thought we stopped calling them HD?

    1. Re:Define hd... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Might be true if it's encoded in h.265. 720p is sadly defined as HD :(

    2. Re:Define hd... by ERJ · · Score: 1

      Yeah, someone is confusing bits and bytes.

    3. Re:Define hd... by Dagger2 · · Score: 2

      ~3.8 GB, apparently.

    4. Re:Define hd... by sexconker · · Score: 2

      1 Tbps in the networking world means 1,000,000,000,000 bits per second because they never got the hang of counting bits instead of measuring baud rate.
      1,000,000,000,000 bits / 33 / 1024 / 1024 / 1024 / 8 = 3.5277370250586307410037878... GB per film.

    5. Re:Define hd... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah, some compressed 1080p avis are under 3.5 gb. They're compressed, so it's only decent for films without many special effects, but it could happen.

  2. 33 HD films in a second by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    How many baseball courts is this?

  3. Great by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    now newst that GAY MARRIAGE is legalized reaches me even faster.

    1. Re:Great by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Newst for nerdst stuff that matterst.

  4. 1tbps is easy by Shatrat · · Score: 4, Informative

    We've been turning up 1tbps optical transport for years, this is easy. You can do this with commodity parts. What they've probably done, which isn't in the summary or TFA, is turn up a single 1tbps super channel over a flexible grid ROADM. That's currently in the development stage with a lot of vendors, such as Alcatel, Ciena, Infinera, Cisco and more. That would allow the entire ROADM system to scale up the N-Terabits, where N is going to depend on how many superchannels can be crammed into the C-band. Probably on the order of 50-100 terabits per second fully loaded.

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    1. Re:1tbps is easy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      I was thinking the same thing, even passive DWDM systems and 100G optics should be able to do 4Tbps over 40 channels - 8Tbps over 80 channels if you've got 50Ghz spaced optics. The passive systems aren't even that expensive, although the frequency-specific optics on each side add up quickly. ROADM systems are nice because you can drop off specific channels and manage amplification and such automatically. In the telecom industry we've been doing this for many years with 10G and OC48/192 links since its cheaper than plowing in new fiber, 40G and 100G are starting to show up now too.
      Here's the kind of stuff we're talking about:
      http://telecomengineering.com/product_type/dwdm-multiplexers/

    2. Re:1tbps is easy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I wonder how many Ghz of fiber bandwidth they used to get the Tbit?

      500Ghz should be off the shelf with 100Gig optics by now?

    3. Re:1tbps is easy by Shatrat · · Score: 1

      Because Coherent optics are wavelength-specific on the receive side, you could set up a 40ch or 80ch system with nothing but 1:N splitters. The problem there would be the 1000 km reach discussed in TFA.

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    4. Re:1tbps is easy by Luckyo · · Score: 1

      As noted in the article, it's not the speed alone that is the achievement, but the speed over distance.

    5. Re:1tbps is easy by Shatrat · · Score: 1

      That's no acheivement. 1tbps over 1000 miles is easy. That's ten OTU4 channels running over a simple DWDM system. All the coherent hardware out there has great OSNR performance so running through 10 amplifiers over 1000 miles of OSP fiber is an everyday project.
      What this article is about, what everyone is working on in the optical space, is a single 1tbps super-channel. Everyone's already concluded we can't hit 1tbps on the same 25ghz spaced channels we use for 100G, so they are working on concatenating 12.5ghz slices into a larger superchannel which may be 50, 62.5, 125 ghz spaced, whatever the needs require. However, that's hard to understand so the blurb is just 1tbps over 1000 miles, which sounds impressive to someone who hasn't already been doing that for years.

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    6. Re:1tbps is easy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      that's hard to understand so the blurb is just 1tbps over 1000 miles, which sounds impressive to someone who hasn't already been doing that for years

      Definitely context sensitive, but some research group was reaching 11,000km with 1Tb/s rates several years back. That's enough distance to connect almost any two points on the globe.

    7. Re:1tbps is easy by Luckyo · · Score: 1

      It would make your comment look a lot more reliable if you at least got your measurement units right.

    8. Re:1tbps is easy by Shatrat · · Score: 1

      If I can go 1000 miles, Dallas to Chicago being a real world example on my network, then I can go 1000 kilometers and then some can't I?

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    9. Re:1tbps is easy by Luckyo · · Score: 1

      I didn't mean anything other than what I said by it. Sometimes when you're suggesting being an expert in the field, getting measurement systems confused will destroy your message even if you are otherwise correct.

    10. Re:1tbps is easy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I, personally, thought he got his measurement systems correct when I was reading what he wrote, and it sounds like he did. Since 1000 miles > 1000km, he was making a valid point.

  5. Quantify. by requerdanos · · Score: 1

    I am curious about the bitrates and running times of the 33 HD films in question.

    1. Re:Quantify. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And if they were legally purchased.

  6. I breathe through my mouth by xxxJonBoyxxx · · Score: 1

    >> 33 HD films in a second

    How many LOC/sec (Library of Congresses per second) is that?

    How about a car analogy?

    1. Re:I breathe through my mouth by dontbemad · · Score: 1

      Sorry, I make it a point not to download cars anymore. Too worried about piracy laws.

  7. More bandwitdth to secure by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Let's hope they up their security too: http://news.slashdot.org/story/13/09/20/1350224/snowden-docs-brits-hacked-accounts-of-belgian-it-admins (Belgacom changed their name to Proximus, they decided that not too long after the big breach...

  8. And by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Some Hollywood executive just fainted.

  9. Fuck that by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Who really wants their network backdoored by Huawei and the Chinese government?

    The stole from Nortel and are acting as agents for the Chinese government.

    1. Re:Fuck that by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      People who don't want their network backdoored by the US? Have you missed some info lately?

    2. Re:Fuck that by Shatrat · · Score: 1

      In fairness, this is layer 1 stuff that they can't really backdoor. I guess they could create a big red "shutdown" button in Beijing though.
      The routers are what you have to worry about forwarding select interesting traffic back to the mothership.

      I still wouldn't use Huawei transport though, it's honestly not that cost competitive with home grown vendors like Infinera and Ciena.

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    3. Re:Fuck that by Shatrat · · Score: 1

      This equipment is being deployed by carriers and ISPs, and generally carriers and ISPs have been complicit in the surveillance with the "Five Eyes" anyway, so this isn't a big purchasing concern when buying from Cisco or Juniper.

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    4. Re:Fuck that by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sure you can,

      just find a few packets and cc them to your favorite TLA.

  10. What's it really mean? by gstoddart · · Score: 0

    So we always see these things listed in terms of "how many of these can we transmit".

    The problem, of course, is you'd need, I assume all of this carefully staged and ready to cram it down that pipe.

    This sounds useful for moving a bunch of bulk data you have already collected, but it seems like the reality of this is always that getting the data ready is your real bottleneck, not to mention the receiving end being able to ingest it.

    What real world things can be done with this? I know it's real, but it just seems like you can only even think of getting close to this with a carefully prepared test.

    For almost anything else, the chance of being able to send, or receive this much data, and then be able to actually put it someplace ... well, that seems unlikely.

    This helps, what, carriers and trunk lines? (Not that it's a bad thing)

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    1. Re:What's it really mean? by TheDarkener · · Score: 1

      The problem, of course, is you'd need, I assume all of this carefully staged and ready to cram it down that pipe.

      That's what she said.

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    2. Re: What's it really mean? by TheMeuge · · Score: 2

      Well... You have to have a good infrastructure for continuous audio and video surveillance of everyone.

    3. Re:What's it really mean? by Ormy · · Score: 2

      This helps, what, carriers and trunk lines? (Not that it's a bad thing)

      Yes, exactly that, of which there are many you personally depend on to post your condescendingly uneducated contributions to /. And many more free of your tripe

    4. Re:What's it really mean? by gstoddart · · Score: 1

      Wow, asshole much? Things went badly at the gloryhole last night?

      Look, I asked because I legitimately find myself asking "how can you make use of this?".

      It's clearly not something which I as a consumer will directly be able to use, and many of us probably have a hard time imagining in what context you have the ability to move around that much data.

      Seriously, fuck off.

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  11. This is only around ~120 GB/sec? by Jahoda · · Score: 1

    I hope I don't sound ignorant here, but if I am doing the math correctly, this is "only" 100 gigs/sec over fiber. I thought this milestone had long since been passed by the industry?

  12. Something strangely familiar here.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The ability to download 33 HD movies at the same time, yet doing so is a violation of copyright and therefore punishable by death in those who would have the DCMA be the prime directive....

    So in different words... Look but don't touch, Touch but don't taste...

    are the inventors of this system by chance part of the fandom of mankind?

    I suspect the devil is in the details and the details sound a hell of a lot like Al Pacino.

  13. I get 24.7 dvds per second only by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Its not blu-ray, just dvds and not 33 but only 24.7. Here's the math: 1 terrabit is 1x10^12 bits. There are 8 bits in 1 byte, so 1 terrabit is 1.25x10^11 bytes. 1.25x10^11 bytes is (dividing by 1024) 122070312.5 kilobytes (or kbytes). Dividing 122070312.5 by 1024 is 119209.2896 Megabytes. Dividing 119209.2896 by 1024 gives 116.4153218 gigabytes (GB). There are 4.7 Gigabytes on a DVD disk (maximum) so 116.4153218 divided by 4.7 yields 24.7 DVDs per second. Not bad mind you, but its not 33 blu-ray disks either (not that anyone uses or even owns blu-ray disks). Side note: the vendors went on a holy war to fight for their standard as 'accepted' and then made blu-ray really hard for people to use and really expensive too. And no one is using it. Good job vendors.

    1. Re:I get 24.7 dvds per second only by Blaskowicz · · Score: 1

      A DVD is really 4.7 decimal GB, so a bit over 4.375 real GB. You should know that if you're going all nitpicky on sizes.