Huawei Marine Achieves a Breakthrough in Unrepeatered Systems with a Transmission Distance of up to 648.5 km

Huawei Marine Networks Co., Ltd. (Huawei Marine) today announced that it has achieved another breakthrough in unrepeatered systems with a transmission distance of up to 648.5 km in a laboratory test in Beijing.

Based on Huawei’s advanced 100G technology, enhanced Raman amplifier (ERPC) and remote optical pump amplifier (ROPA), Huawei Marine achieved a major breakthrough in unrepeatered submarine cable system transmission in April 2016, with a transmission distance of 627km but has now increased this transmission distance further.

Combining PDM BPSK modulation, ODSP and third-generation soft decision technology, Huawei Marine’s advanced 100G transmission technology addresses the issue of high dependence on the dispersion compensation module and low PMD while reducing the requirement of OSNR. At the same time, the coding gain has been improved which greatly enhances 100G transmission capability while increasing transmission distance.

The laboratory test was performed on a 100 Gbit/s channel over an ultra-low loss optical fiber by using Huawei Marine’s self-developed ERPC and ROPA. These advanced technologies have greatly improved the 100G unrepeatered transmission capability by reinforcing the pump optical power and optimizing pump performance.

“Huawei Marine has achieved another breakthrough in unrepeatered system design which demonstrates our continuous commitment to investing in high-performance technology,” said Zhang Shigui, Vice President of Technology, Huawei Marine. “When used commercially, this technology will broaden the range of unrepeatered system applications and create value for our customers.”

Source: Huawei Marine Networks Press Release

ANALYSIS: This announcement is basically a regurgitation of the Press Release that HMN put out in April ahead of the SubOptic 2016 conference in Dubai.

Out of 587 domestic and international submarine fiber optic cables that already exist, only 4 would have been affected by this extension in the transmission capability of HMN's technology.

Moreover, Xtera announced a similar achievement back in September 2015 (see Issue #32 of this report), as did Alcatel Submarine Networks in May 2015 (see here). Broadly speaking, all these system suppliers are offering similar "breakthroughs" in terms of distance, using ultra-low loss fiber, Raman amplification, and advanced modulation schemes.