A 2000 km by 3.2 Tbps transmission achieved

An Experiment on the Next-generation Optical Transmission Conducted Jointly with OFS Laboratories
--One of the synergies between Furukawa Electric and OFS

March 26, 2002

At OFC2002, an international conference concerning fiber-optic communications technologies, held at Anaheim in the suburbs of Los Angels, U.S.A., Furukawa Electric presented the results of a record-setting experiment on ultra-high capacity, long haul optical transmission. The experiment was conducted jointly with a research group of ex-Bell Laboratories belonging to OFS --an ex-Optical Fiber Division of Lucent Technologies-- which Furukawa Electric acquired last November. While many papers regarding the state-of-the-art research results were submitted to the conference in advance, the Furukawa's paper was recognized to be very important technologically, thus resulting in the acceptance for presentation.

In this experiment, an optical transmission over 2000 km at 3.2 Tbps has been achieved using unconventional Raman amplifiers based on bi-directional pumping. The result is far superior to conventional records, i.e., 2000 km by 1.6 Tbps or 1200 km at 5 Tbps, thereby finding new opportunities for high-capacity, long haul optical transmission of the next generation. Varieties of basic technologies such as a new fiber called TrueWave Reach and a new low-noise pumping laser for Raman amplifiers called i-Rainbow have been used to settle the unsolved problems of Raman amplification, which is the key factor technology for high-capacity, long haul transmission. Furukawa Electric has made major contributions to the success of this experiment, in collaboration with the OFS Laboratories, based on its Raman amplification technology of the next generation in which the company is taking the worldwide lead.

Thus, it can be said that the success of the experiment at this time is a synergy effect attributable to the world-famous optical amplification technology of Furukawa Electric in conjunction with the advanced transmission technology of OFS. We intend to promote research and development of leading-edge technologies in fiber optics, taking advantage of the excellence of the two companies.