Subsea Cables & Internet Infrastructure

The National Institute of IT and Communication Technology (NICT) in Japan has been diligently working for many years on dramatically increasing fibre optic bandwidth by using a wider spectrum range than the traditional C and L bands. The long haul fibre optic networks have relied exclusively on the C and L bands because they offer the lowest optical attenuation for silicon-based fibre optics. Light in these frequency bands fades and loses strength relatively slowly as it passes through fibre optic glass. But as the chart below shows, the C and L bands comprise just a fraction of the available spectrum that lasers can use.  In this trial the NICT achieved 450 Tbps on a repeatered London metro fibre pair connecting Telehouse London to the University of London. Because existing optical amplifiers are designed to work only in the C and L bands, NICT has spent years developing amplifiers optimized for the O, E, S, and U bands. These bands required that the fibre optic strands in the am...

Google's Firmina cable is a 16 fibre pair spatial division multiplexing cable that connects its Myrtle Beach CLS in South Carolina to Uruguay, Brazil, and Argentina. Firmina was one of Brazil's first notable writers and novelists. The cable is on the verge of RFS with the wet segments done and the focus on securing back haul, equipment installation, and testing. Design capacity is 240 Tbps. The cable is open. This means each fibre pair or spectrum owner selects the Layer 1 technology vendor such as Ciena or Infinera. Hence Firmina is technology agnostic. This reflects the fact that subsea optical amplifiers are compatible with all DWDM manufacturers and hence there is no compelling reason for capacity owners to chose the same terminal equipment. The main reason for doing so was the consortium model where a single operating entity was created to manage the physical assets on behalf of the members. But this model lead to conservative, status quo decision making. Google and the ot...