Unity Cable System Upgrades to 7.4Tbps per FP with Infinera ICE6 Solutions

Infinera announced Monday that Infinera’s ICE6 800G coherent optical solution has been deployed to modernize and increase capacity on the trans-Pacific Unity submarine cable system. By upgrading to Infinera’s ICE6 solution, the Unity cable system will double capacity and deliver up to 7.4 Tbps per fiber pair.

The Unity cable system was ready for service in April 2010, jointly built by a consortium comprising Bharti Airtel Limited, Global Transit Limited (a wholly-owned subsidiary of TIME), Google, KDDI Corp., Telstra, and Singtel. 

The Unity cable system represents a direct connection between Japan and the United States, offers PoP-PoP connectivity terminating at Coresite LA1 - One Wilshire carrier neutral data center. The system was initially designed with 96x10G DWDM over 8 fiber pairs, for a total system capacity of 7.68 Tbps.

By upgrading the network to ICE6, the consortium will be able to increase the life span of the cable by nearly 25% and deliver up to 7.4 Tbps per fiber pair. This modernization with Infinera’s ICE6-powered GX Series solution also enables operators to get the most out of the subsea cable by minimizing cost per bit while maximizing the spectral efficiency and fiber capacity. This level of performance is achieved by leveraging Infinera’s unique and innovative solution features that include Nyquist subcarriers, forward error correction gain sharing, and photonic integrated circuit-based technology.