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Alcatel-Lucent, Zain KSA end Agile Optical Network testing

Ultra-broadband access to be provided throughout Saudi Arabiarn

Alcatel-Lucent and Zain KSA have announced the completion of an Agile Optical Network to provide ultra-broadband access throughout Saudi Arabia.

The fibre-optic backbone network is based on converged wavelength division multiplexing/optical transport (WDM/OTN) technology, enabling Zain to provide 100-Gbps capability throughout the country’s main metros.

Zain and Alcatel-Lucent are also conducting a trial of 400-Gbps data transmission over an existing optical link carrying live network traffic in the major western city of Jeddah. Alcatel-Lucent’s 400 G optical solution, based on the 400-Gbps Photonic Service Engine (PSE) platform, supports the emergence of new high-performance high-bandwidth.

Zain has made the nationwide deployment of fibre-based mobile ultra-broadband access to support the increasing network capacity demands of 4G LTE. Alcatel-Lucent has provided its converged WDM/OTN platform, the 1830 Photonic Service Switch (PSS), to address the booming demand for high-bandwidth data services such as high-definition video streaming, next-generation mobile broadband applications and cloud services.

The 100-G fibre-optic technology takes advantage of the silicon innovations from Alcatel-Lucent’s Bell Labs and supports a capacity of up to 8.8 Terabits per second – the equivalent of 1.32 million HDTV channels streamed at the same time – over a single optical fibre.