Optus and Nokia have conducted a successful field trial on Optus’ existing operational long-haul fibre network of one terabit per second (Tbps) over 1,050 kilometres (Sydney to Melbourne) and the first in the world to hit 1.1 Tbps over 405 kilometres (Sydney to Canberra). The result is a field trial speed record on the telco’s existing operational long-haul fibre network.
“Optus and our partner Nokia continue to push the edge on what is possible in the field of long-haul fibre networks,” said Optus Vice President John Castro. “As Australians and Australian businesses continue to move towards an increasingly global digital economy, the modernisation of our terrestrial long-haul network in conjunction with our Optus subsea capabilities on Indigo will play a critical role in providing high-speed and high-capacity connectivity between south-east Asia into and across Australia.”
Through factory testing of its new 400Gbps long haul system, Optus has also confirmed unregenerated services between Melbourne and Perth, removing the need to regenerate in Adelaide. This enhancement reduces latency and cost of transmission between the Australian East and West coasts.
“While advancements in mobile technology such as 5G and LEO satellites are exciting and play an important role in creating positive connections throughout our customer base, fibre continues to be a crucial area where we are still seeing cutting edge innovation play out,” said Castro.
The successful terabit field trials covering distances of approximately 1,050 kilometres were completed on Optus’ operational 400Gbps system in February 2024 on the coastal route between Sydney and Melbourne, and again across approximately 405 kilometres between Sydney and Canberra facilitated by leveraging the spectrum sharing capabilities of Optus’ existing long-haul network.
Optus says the speeds it hit would support the transfer of roughly 1.2 petabytes (PB) of data in a single day or the equivalent to backing up the entire contents of a large data centre in just one day. This corresponds to a total capacity of more than 35Tbps over a single fibre pair using standard C-band transmission, which is also a record on a production network.
