Infinera Transforms Subsea Networks to Cloud Scale

Sunnyvale, Calif. – January 15, 2017, 9:00 a.m. HST USA – Infinera, a provider of Intelligent Transport Networks, announced new platforms within the award-winning DTN-X Family to power cloud scale subsea networks. Infinera introduced the XTS-3300 and XTS-3600 meshponders for subsea networks, and upgraded its DTN-X XTC Series to 12 terabits per second (Tb/s) of non-blocking Optical Transport Network (OTN) switching with a new 1.2 Tb/s subsea line card. The solution features dynamic spectral sharing and access to real-time subsea link performance. These new tools enhance Infinera's open and programmable subsea network architecture, enabling operators to securely monetize their subsea spectrum.

Trans-Atlantic bandwidth is forecast to grow at 40 percent annually through 2025, with the majority of this traffic shifting to private networks according to Telegeography. This private traffic is dominated by N x 100 gigabits per second (Gb/s) elephant flows traveling between the data centers of internet content providers as they move content around the globe. Subsea operators need to maximize the fiber capacity of their cable plants and simultaneously optimize their networks to efficiently handle these 100 Gb/s flows and support smooth scale-out of capacity. This requires networks that are cloud scale, programmable, flexible and secure.

Infinera’s new solutions for subsea network operators include:

• DTN-X XTS-3300 and XTS-3600 meshponders. The compact 1 rack unit (1RU) and 4RU plug-and-play subsea platforms integrate the groundbreaking performance of the Infinite Capacity Engine with the Advanced Coherent Toolkit (ACT) for enhanced capacity and reach. The industry’s first meshponders combine 2.4 Tb/s super-channels with sliceable photonics and in-flight line-rate Layer 1 encryption in a compact and lower-power form factor. They support Infinera’s unique Instant Bandwidth capability, providing rapid bandwidth management and service provisioning for success-based growth. The XTS Series features long-reach subsea-optimized modulation formats providing best-in-class capacity, as well as the industry’s first commercially available Nyquist subcarriers to improve transmission performance and soft-decision forward error correction (SD-FEC) gain sharing to maximize capacity. The new platforms seamlessly interoperate with Infinera’s DTN-X XTC and XT Series, providing a unified end-to-end Intelligent Transport Network portfolio that enables end-to-end services covering subsea, long-haul, metro and data center interconnect applications.
• DTN-X XTC Series upgrade. The Infinera DTN-X XTC-4 and XTC-10 have been upgraded with subsea-optimized and Instant Bandwidth-enabled 1.2 Tb/s line modules. The XTC-4 and XTC-10 platforms now have more than twice the switching and transmission capacity, enabling up to 12 Tb/s of OTN switching via non-disruptive in-service upgrades. The new line modules coexist with previously deployed modules, thereby protecting prior investments in DTN-X platforms. The DTN-X XTC Series now offers up to 12 Tb/s of non-blocking switching capacity with ODU0-level switching granularity in a single unit, and unlike competitive systems, has no tradeoffs between client-side tributary capacity and line-side capacity.
• New subsea software tools for open systems. Dynamic spectral sharing enhances Infinera’s open architecture, allowing subsea operators to partition and monetize valuable fiber spectrum so that it can be securely shared with multiple tenants, independent of both cable and submarine line terminal equipment suppliers. Mission-critical subsea link performance data is available in real time, on-demand, via open software-defined network application programming interfaces. This enables subsea operators to monitor transmission health as well as identify opportunities for capacity adjustments. In addition to these new tools, Infinera's Time-based Instant Bandwidth enables operators to instantly change network capacity as well as duration, facilitating a dynamic Intelligent Transport Network. Now operators can closely match traffic patterns to address bursty service demands from customers, match bandwidth to revenue, and instantly reroute bandwidth in the case of network disruptions.

“Infinera is committed to bringing advanced features to the subsea market. The XTS Series offers unprecedented ease of installation and scale-out, advanced transmission performance, and the power of Instant Bandwidth to deliver real value to cable system operators,” said Scott Jackson, Vice President of Subsea Business Group at Infinera. “The new capabilities announced today deliver leading capacity and reach, and provide the tools essential for cloud scale subsea networks. We are pleased to show Infinera's investment in the subsea market, with solutions enabling operators to rapidly and cost-effectively deliver scalable services across open networks.”

“Subsea networks are key enablers for broadband penetration across the world,” said Larry Schwartz, Chief Executive Officer at Seaborn Networks. “Our flexible business model enables customers to rapidly expand wholesale capacity on submarine cable networks. The new Infinera XTS-3300 and XTS-3600 meshponder solutions and dynamic spectral sharing are ideal for subsea networks to ensure scalability, flexibility, programmability and rapid activation of bandwidth.”

Infinera’s Advanced Coherent Toolkit enables increased capacity and reach on submarine cables and includes the following innovations: Nyquist subcarriers and SD-FEC gain sharing, 3QAM (quadrature amplitude modulation), matrix-enhanced phase-shift keying (ME-PSK) that surpasses binary phase-shift keying (BPSK) reach performance, and a new, high-gain SD-FEC algorithm. Customer trials validated the benefit of Nyquist subcarriers, demonstrating approximately 20 percent increase in reach compared to single carrier transmission, facilitating increased capacity via higher spectral efficiency. The trials also validated SD-FEC gain sharing in which high-margin carriers share excess margin with carriers at lower optical signal-to-noise ratio (OSNR) to improve performance, increasing capacity. These new capabilities are controlled by Infinera’s Xceed Software Suite and managed by Infinera’s Digital Network Administrator (DNA).

The XTS-3300 platform is planned for availability in the second quarter of 2017, with the XTS-3600 platform and the 1.2 Tb/s subsea line module for the XTC-4 and XTC-10 platforms to follow shortly thereafter.