NO-UK Cable System Achieves 800Gbps with Ciena's Solutions

NO-UK submarine cable system connecting Norway and United Kingdom has achieved a record-breaking 800Gbps line rate using Ciena’s GeoMesh Extreme, powered by WaveLogic 5 Extreme coherent optical technology. This will allow NO-UK to deliver its customers greater capacity, faster speeds and a greener offering through lower energy consumption.

NO-UK is an open submarine cable system, featuring eight fiber pairs, runs for 700km between Stavanger (Norway) and Newcastle (UK) and is the shortest low-latency direct submarine route between the two nations.

The NO-UK cable system was developed by Altibox Carrier, which owns and operates fiber-optic cables.

Xtera was granted supply contract for the NO-UK cable system in 2020. Provisional acceptance was achieved in last December.

Altibox selected Ciena’s GeoMesh Extreme, leveraging Ciena’s WaveLogic 5 Extreme technology and 6500 Packet-Optical Platforms, supporting up to 35Tbps per fiber pair—the highest capacity achieved to date across a repeatered submarine network. The design and cable validation exercise was conducted according to the new International Telecoms Union (ITU) submarine cable standard for open cables, known as ITU-T G.977.1.