Scientists from Bell Labs, the research and development arm of Lucent Technologies, have set a new world record for multimode fibre transmission, sending 10 gigabits (billion bits of data per second) over 1.6 kilometres of Lucent`s new LazrSPEED multimode fibre for local area networks (LANs).
"They said it couldn`t be done," said Gerard Glanville, regional manager at Lucent Technologies GCM southern Africa. "Bell Labs` breaking the `kilometre distance barrier` demonstrates the robustness of our recently introduced LazrSPEED fibre at very high data rates, and it`s a great example of Lucent`s speed to market."
Last May, in a system using worst-case field conditions, the team demonstrated 10-gigabit serial transmission over 300 metres of prototype multimode fibre that was later introduced as LazrSPEED. To simulate rigorous real-world conditions, their demonstration was done with four worst-case optical connections, plus worst-case cabling stress effects and alignment tolerances of low-cost transceiver packaging.
"We`re bringing the religion of reliability to local areas networks," said Martin Nuss, head of Bell Labs Optical Enterprise Networks Research, noting that the performance level for both the 300-metre and 1.6-kilometre distances showed an error rate of less than one in one trillion.
Before the Bell Labs 10-gigabit/300-metre transmission demonstration in May, transmission over much less than 300 metres was considered to be the maximum capacity for practical multimode systems.
"In our 300-metre demonstration we established the specifications for a robust, practical 10-gigabit system for in-building networks with guaranteed performance levels in real-world conditions. Now, the 1.6-kilometre link has demonstrated what might be the ultimate capability of LazrSPEED fibre," said Nuss.
Lucent introduced the LazrSPEED offer, a complete end-to-end 10-gigabit structured connectivity solution, in August and expects to begin accepting orders in January 2000.
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