Telstra taps Infinera for 800G subsea cable connection

As it continues with its mission of extending its connectivity services across the world, global telecommunications and technology company Telstra has deployed Infinera’s coherent 800G solution across its international network.

Australia-based Telstra operates in more than 20 countries outside its domestic territory, providing services to business, government, carriers and over-the-top customers. Telstra Enterprise provides data and IP networks and network application services, such as managed networks, unified communications, cloud, industry solutions and integrated services, while Telstra Purple is a new professional and managed services business in Australia, Asia and the UK.

The company’s global network includes more than 26 cable systems spanning over 400,000km, with access to multiple cable landing stations and more than 2,000 points of presence around the world. The company also boasts the largest subsea cable network in the Asia Pacific region, with access to the most lit capacity not just in Asia, but also from the region to Australia, the US and Europe.

Telstra said bandwidth demand continues to rise at exponential rates, putting pressure on older subsea cables and potentially shortening their economic lifespan, even though they are designed for a 25-year operational life. At the same time, it said, network operators were being challenged with scaling and delivering capacity in the APAC region, one of the fastest-growing regions for submarine network capacity.

By deploying ICE6 technology, Infinera said Telstra network providers are now equipped to get the most out of their dispersion-managed subsea cables with highly granular baud rate configuration, industry-leading long-codeword probabilistic constellation shaping (LC-PCS) and Nyquist subcarriers, on which Infinera claimed a five-year implementation lead.

The deployment follows a previous installation that Telstra achieved with Infinera, using its ICE6 800G coherent technology on its GX Series Compact Modular Platform over a dispersion-managed subsea cable between Hong Kong and Singapore, a segment that spans 2,940km. Using ICE6, Infinera calculated that Telstra can realise a 45% increase in capacity over previous-generation technology and 20 times the original design capacity of the cable.

“Telstra designed and deployed its dispersion-managed cable, EAC-2A1, long before coherent transmission was developed,” said David Robertson, executive international networks and IT at Telstra. “The success of our ICE6 trial illustrates that we can successfully upgrade our existing cable systems to meet growing bandwidth demands. This success was the driving force behind selecting ICE6.

“With Infinera’s 800G solution, we can significantly increase capacity on all segments of our network across our new modern and legacy cables globally. Building new cables is expensive, so getting the most out of them using the latest technology means we can meet our customers’ ever-increasing capacity and resilience needs at the right price point.”

Nick Walden, senior vice-president, worldwide sales at Infinera, added: “ICE6 demonstrated its ability to deliver scalable capacity across a challenging legacy cable. As subsea operators look to protect their subsea network infrastructure investment, deploying proven solutions that quickly and cost-effectively enable accelerated service turn-up will be critical to meet increasing customer demands.”