Ciena and Comcast recently collaborated for the first long-distance 600 Gbps single wavelength pilot deployment. Comcast used Ciena’s WaveLogic 5 Extreme (WL5e) and flexible grid technology to carry live commercial traffic across more than 800 km between core peering locations in Newark, New Jersey, and 
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. To test the full capabilities of the technology, Comcast also looped back the signal and verified successful operation of 600 Gbps across 1,600 km.
The initiative achieved a two times increase in wavelength capacity across the mixed fiber link while leveraging Ciena’s WL5e technology, which can provide bandwidth from 200 G to 800 G while also dynamically adapting to end-user demands by providing more capacity on each wavelength.
The deployment of WL5e on the link between Newark and Pittsburgh is the first in Ciena’s Waveserver 5 form factor. Waveserver 5 leverages WaveLogic 5 coherent technology to scale up to 12.8 Tbps in a compact 2RU footprint, allowing Comcast to maximize fiber capacity and reduce the amount of hardware required to support high-bandwidth service growth.
