Verizon and Ciena conducted a proof-of-concept to increase capacity over the operator’s fibre network, part of a plan to improve its handling of data-intensive AI tasks.

The trial in the US state of Massachusetts moved 1.6Tb/s of data across the operator’s live fibre network on a single-carrier wavelength using Ciena’s WaveLogic 6 Extreme (WL6e) coherent optical technology.

It took place over a 118km metro route covering ten hops and which passed through nine reconfigurable optical add-drop multiplexers (ROADMs).

The companies stated the trial validated the performance of 1.6Tb/s using WL6e in a flexible, dense ROADM environment.

Adam Koeppe, SVP of technology strategy and planning at Verizon, explained AI is contingent on analysing billions of data points in real-time on an ongoing basis, which requires it to exponentially increase the capacity of its fibre infrastructure.

Ciena SVP of global products and supply chain Brodie Gage explained “WL6e uses coherent DSP innovations to provide the highest capacity over fibre, which will support Verizon’s throughput and capacity goals”.

There is also an energy saving element to Ciena’s offering: it estimates the power efficiency of WL6e translates to an 86 per cent reduction in emissions per terabit of capacity delivered compared with its previous technology.