Facebook selects Infinera fiber-optic network for world's longest multi-terabit route
Facebook has deployed an Infinera (Sunnyvale, CA) Intelligent Transport Network to light the world's longest terrestrial optical network route capable of delivering up to 8 terabits per second (Tbps) of data transmission capacity. The new route spans 3,998 km and is deployed without any regeneration. Infinera says that 8 Tb of data transmission per second is enough capacity to stream over one million high-definition videos at the same time.
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Facebook's European terrestrial network stretches from its Lulea, Sweden, datacenter across major hubs throughout Europe. Facebook deployed the Infinera portfolio of products to connect these hubs, harnessing Infinera’s FlexCoherent solution to deliver terabits of capacity on a single fiber across the continent.
Today, Facebook delivers to its European network 100 gigabit per second (Gbps) coherent transmission via 500 Gbps super channels, featuring a forward-scale design to support 1.2 Tbps super-channels in the future. The high capacity super channels are enabled by 500 Gbps photonic integrated circuits (PICs) developed and fabricated by Infinera, who says they are the only supplier providing 500 Gbps of transmission capacity from a single line card. PICs enable the communications platform to integrate wavelength division multiplexing super-channel transmission with up to 12 Tbps of non-blocking optical transport network switching, providing seamless scaling as traffic requirements grow in the future.
"The Infinera Intelligent Transport Network makes it easy for us to rapidly grow network capacity while keeping operations simple," said Niclas Comstedt, director of Network Engineering at Facebook. "Once the equipment is in place we are able to turn up as many terabits as we need."
"Content providers, such as Facebook, are adding long-haul capacity at a rapid pace," said TeleGeography Research director Alan Mauldin. "According to our research, private network capacity in Europe has increased more than 8-fold between 2010 and 2014."
"I've worked closely with service providers around the world to test and deploy ultra-long-haul optical transport systems for over a decade," said Steve Grubb, Fellow at Infinera. "The route we are announcing with Facebook is delivering multi-terabit capacity today and I believe this is the world’s longest 8 Tb/s capable route in production."
SOURCE: Infinera; http://www.infinera.com/j7/servlet/NewsItem?newsItemID=447