Lumen and Ciena Trial 1.2 Tbps Wavelength Across 3,050 Kilometers of Terrestrial Network

Lumen Technologies (Lumen) and Ciena have successfully established a 1.2 terabit per second (Tbps) wavelength service trial across 3,050 kilometers (more than 1,800 miles) on Lumen's Ultra-Low-Loss (ULL) fiber network, making it the world's longest 1.2 terabit non-regenerated signal on terrestrial fiber cable network.

Using 800G interfaces, Lumen and Ciena successfully tested and qualified the services to support wavelength, Ethernet, and IP services over the 1.2 Tbps single carrier channel. The live network trial from Denver to Dallas used Ciena's latest WaveLogic 6 Extreme (WL6e) technology equipped in the Waveserver platform running over a 6500 photonic line system.

The trial also showcased the impressive performance and seamless interoperability between Ciena's Waveserver platform and the Juniper PTX10002-36QDD Packet Transport Router at 800 Gbps over the ultra-long-haul 1.2 Tbps intercity network. By leveraging the performance, flexibility and scalability of the Juniper PTX Series Routers, Lumen successfully established Ethernet and IP services with minimal latency and zero packet loss throughout the tests.

Faster connections up to 1.2 Tbps wavelengths means less lag, more capacity and the flexibility to handle the most data-hungry applications across multiple industries:

• AI & Machine Learning 
• Hyperscale Cloud & Data Center Interconnects
• Financial Trading and Market Data Transport
• Cybersecurity & AI-powered Threat Intelligence
• Media & Streaming

Lumen is at the forefront of building a next-generation network designed to handle the explosive growth of AI and cloud workloads. Lumen is revolutionizing its internet architecture for the AI economy by leveraging Routed Optical Networking. They are addressing latency and cost challenges by creating a true multi-cloud architecture. 

AI, cloud and security demands are pushing data transmission speeds to new limits. For hyperscalers and enterprises, the jump to 1.2 Tbps wavelength services unlocks next-gen AI, cloud and data-intensive applications while improving scalability and network efficiency.

AI is driving a massive surge in data center workloads, with IDC predicting that data generation will grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 40.5% through 2027. Gartner expects that the use of generative AI models will influence over 90% of organizations to pursue hybrid cloud environments through 2027.

With expanded use cases from 100G to 800G links and up to 3000km reaches, Routed Optical Networking can now address access to ultra-long-haul (ULH) applications enabled by new 800G ZR/ZR+ and 400G ULH coherent pluggable modules.

Service providers have shown strong interest for 400G ULH with a trial announced by Arelion over 2,253km, enabling a 35% reduction in CAPEX and 84% reduction in OPEX. According to LightCounting, Google and Meta will be primary consumers of 800ZR/ZR+ for metro and regional networks. And, Colt recently announced that it is the first provider to successfully trial enhanced performance 800G ZR+ coherent pluggable optics in their Cisco 8000 series router ports, in its production network.

Prior to the Lumen-Ciena trial of 1.2 Tbps wavelength across 3,050 Kilometers of terrestrial network, Aqua Comms and Ciena trialed the first-ever 1.3 Tbps wavelength transmission spanning 5500km across the Atlantic over the AEC-1 subsea cable system.