Vaiv 400G Test

The acid test of any emerging communications rate is a live field trial. The whole ecosystem must come together—from chips to systems, from lasers to complete optical links—before a single bit of large traffic can be sent. It’s where the rubber meets the road.

Furthermore, large carriers like AT&T need technology to be robust and stable before it can be let loose on their core network. Early this year, Viavi collaborated with Finisar, Coriant, and AT&T to demonstrate that live 400G Ethernet traffic can be carried over an existing network at the required level of service and quality, even though 400G Ethernet is still an emerging standard from the IEEE (Viavi contributes to many aspects of standards development). AT&T presented the successful results of this field trial at OFC during a post-deadline session titled, “SDN-Controlled 400GbE end-to-end service using a CFP8 client over a deployed, commercial flexible ROADM system.” (Report available to OSA members.)

Viavi Runs Live 400G at OFC
ONT-600 running 400G live at OFC 2017

Dr. Paul Brooks explains, “Viavi’s ONT-600 400G was at the core of this successful trial between New York and Washington, DC. Before the trial was set in motion, Viavi’s ONT 400G was used by the system and module vendors to develop and validate each component. Then at system integration time the ONT characterized the traffic’s baseline performance. Finally, during the trial, the ONT acted as a load traffic generator and analyzer, ensuring each of the packets transmitted over the live network was corrected and accurately sent and decoded.

It is only with the precise and comprehensive test coverage Viavi’s ONT offers that a carrier like AT&T can confidently use emerging technologies on their network. They can characterize the performance metric of each packet – even at a rate of over 10 million packets a second over a 24-hour period. From the earliest prototype laser or IC to live traffic carried over AT&Ts network—the ONT 400G plays a major part at accelerating the roll out of this technology.”

Also at OFC, Viavi participated in a separate, live demonstration of an interoperating 400G network on the show floor with the Ethernet Alliance and Finisar. Here’s a video featuring John D’Ambrosia from the Ethernet Alliance describing the demo.

Learn more about Viavi’s leading-edge ONT-600 400G, the 400G Ecosystem, or contact your Viavi rep for a demo.

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