Optical fibers in the SEA-ME-WE 5 submarine cable connecting Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Western Europe. Photo: Boris Horvat/AFP via Getty Images
Japanese NEC and its subsidiary OCC Corporation development and testing of submarine repeaters and optical cable with 20 pairs of optical fibers (40 fibers). This is a new world record.
The previous achievement also belonged to NEC - a cable with 16 pairs, and soon NEC promises to release repeaters and cables "for 24 pairs and more."
NEC achieved this milestone with only minor changes to its proven repeater and cable designs, according to a press release. This is done by optimizing the key components of the repeater, as well as proving that the existing cable design can easily accommodate more fibers.
NEC submarine cable with multiple layers of armor
The 20 fiber pair repeaters continue to use the quadruple pump sharing technology pioneered by NEC in 2010 to provide high optical and electrical efficiency.
NEC repeaters with quad signal amplifiers are located at the OCC factory in Kitakyushu (Japan). These repeaters were made for Google's FASTER subsea route across the Atlantic Ocean. Photo taken on July 9, 2015
Mass production of repeaters and optical cable of the new brand has already begun.
It is believed that today the most advanced cables on intercontinental channels belong to Google - these are Equiano and Dunant channels, which the company is now laying between the US East Coast and France, as well as between Portugal and South Africa, respectively. These cables contain 12 pairs of optical fibers.
A set of fiber optic cables manufactured by Subcom. Photo: Brian Smith/Subcom
The throughput of the 12-pair Dunant is claimed to be 250 Tbps. Google has already announced a cable with 24 pairs of optical fibers. The latest models of cables manufactured by Google and Subcom use dense wavelength division multiplexing technology, which allows information to be transmitted over a single fiber at more than 100 wavelengths.
Winding fiber optics onto a spool in the hold of a Subcom marine cable layer. Photo: Bill Gallery/Subcom
Submarine cable laying is an exceptionally fast growing market. According to the report , the largest manufacturers of submarine cables are now the following companies:
- ASN
- TE Subcom
- NEC
- Prysmian
- Nexans
- Hengtong
- zhongtian
Subcom's Reliance class cable layer. Photo: Subcom
Telecommunications giants NEC, TE Subcom and Alcatel-Lucent have recently come under increasing pressure from big IT companies such as Google, Facebook and Microsoft to be involved in both cable development and undersea communications.
Source: habr.com