MCI Progresses with 40 Gbps Network

In order to bring on-demand video and other Internet based services such as VoIP to households around the world, the network infrastructure must first be in place. On Monday, MCI announced it had successfully transmitted 40 Gigabit per second over 3,040 km of fiber, moving one step closer to high-capacity Internet.

The field trial took place in October and November around the Dallas metro area and follows a test in 2004 in which MCI transmitted the world's first 40 Gbps traffic in San Jose. That feat was surpassed weeks later by MCI sending 40 Gbps 1,200 km between Sacramento and Salt Lake City.

To surpass the 3,000 kilometer mark and reach Ultra Long Haul (ULH) distances, MCI partnered up with Xtera, Mintera and Juniper.

The network "carried 74 channels of 10 Gbps traffic and 2 channels of 40 Gbps traffic over 38 individual 80 km spans of standard single mode fiber," according to MCI. Juniper OC768 routers were used to handle such bandwidth, along with a Xtera all-Raman DWDM system and Mintera advanced modulation format long reach OC768 transponders.

"As we execute on our IP convergence strategy, and as customer applications drive bandwidth onto our network, 40 Gbps transmission becomes an increasingly important technology to enable efficient scaling of our network," said Jack Wimmer, MCI vice president of Network Architecture and Advanced Technology.

MCI says the 40 Gbps technology will enable it to easily deliver "high performance bandwidth applications such as Web services, storage area networks, and multimedia distribution to our customers."