New higher-capacity undersea fiber from Corning and Lucent
The two largest manufacturers of optical fiber each announced new versions of their fiber that are especially advantageous for transoceanic distances. Corning introduced its Submarine Large Effective Area Fiber, which it says enables transmission of 16 channels at 10 Gbit/s. Corning expects deployment to begin in early 1999, with the nonzero dispersion-shifted fiber finding use in the planned Project Oxygen global undersea network (see Laser Focus World, May 1998, p. 103). Lucent`s TrueWave XL fiber, with similar bandwidth capacity, also has a large-effective-area design but negative dispersion. Tyco Submarine Systems Ltd. (Morristown, NJ) will be the first to deploy the Lucent fiber in a four-year agreement valued at more than $200 million.