Verizon used new Cisco optical networking components to push data across a single wavelength at speeds in excess of 1 Tb/s, bolstering the operator’s ongoing push toward expanding the scale and reach of its fiber network.

The trial was conducted over Verizon’s commercial fiber network in Long Island, New York. It used Cisco’s new NCS 1014 transponder and Acacia’s Coherent Interconnect Module 8 (CIM 8) to push data across the Cisco NCS 2000 line system already installed by Verizon. The upgraded Cisco optical to electrical conversion cards manage the flow of data through fiber optic cables.

One trial pushed a 1.2 Tb/s wavelength across three fiber central offices, which house the reconfigurable optical add-drop multiplexer (ROADM) that manage the optical signal path onto or off of the fiber. A second test pushed a 1 Tb/s single wavelength of data more than 205 kilometers and past 14 fiber central offices. And a third trial powered an 800 Gb/s transmission more than 305 kilometers and past 20 fiber central offices. The fiber central office metric was noted as a key performance metric due to filter-based signal degradation typical of data sent through those locations.

Adam Koeppe, SVP of network and technology planning at Verizon, told SDxCentral that the trial showed the capability to beam a signal further distances from a single point before needing to “regenerate” the light signal to extend that reach.

“Regeneration by its nature involves some type of degradation, so you're basically boosting the signal light traveling through the fiber,” Koeppe said. “This equipment allows for less regeneration so you have a much cleaner light signal that's running through your fiber lines. That improves the capacity. … By improving the quality of that light signal running through the fiber, that allows us to serve that traffic much more efficiently and reliably because there are fewer hops that are needed within the line infrastructure to get that light from point A to point B, and overall improves the capacity that we can process through that fiber backbone."

Bill Gartner, SVP and GM for Cisco’s Optical Systems and Optical Business Unit, said the trial results were “very significant.”

“We look at the current generation of 800-gig technology that's offered by competitors and we believe that as you look at the percentage of network that that 800-gig could traverse it's probably about 20% of the network that you could actually have a meaningful 800-gig coverage on,” Gartner said. “With this CIM 8, we think we're up to about 90% of terrestrial networks that that can leverage 800-gig technology. That would include metro networks and long-haul networks. It's a much broader reach for the technology then what current technology is offering.”

That CIM 8 technology further highlights Cisco’s acquisition of Acacia in early 2021, which has propelled the vendor toward the top of the optical vendor landscape. It’s also been a big part of Cisco’s ongoing “internet of the future” framework that includes its Silicon One programmable silicon architecture, converged SDN transport and network automation.

“Acacia has been a terrific acquisition for us,” Gartner said. “We're really pleased with their execution. They've had a great history of executing on technology transitions and they've continued that as they’ve come into Cisco.”

Koeppe said that the trial is all about keeping its backbone network capacity ahead of the demand curve. This includes growing demand from its 4G LTE and 5G wireless network, fixed-wireless access (FWA) services, FiOS fiber service and other backhaul services.

“This particular trial highlights our ability to put newly innovative equipment into our existing fiber plant that greatly improves the quality a signal running over the fiber to improve the capacity, improve the performance and the reliability of that existing plant, and staying ahead of all the demand that's occurring on the access parts of the network,” Koeppe said.

Verizon uses its owned fiber assets to power fiber-to-the-premise (FTTP) service and to provide backhaul for its cell sites. The carrier noted it now connects more than 51% of its cell sites with its own fiber, which allows Verizon to more closely monitor performance and costs. The carrier claims to have added 57,000 fiber miles since 2020.

As Koeppe mentioned, that cell site backhaul is also becoming more important for Verizon as it expands its rapidly growing 5G-based FWA service. That service added 384,000 new connections during the third quarter and was serving 2.7 million total customers.

CEO Hans Vestberg said the carrier has enough network capacity to target between 4 million and 5 million FWA customers by 2025, adding that it has constructed the network “for way more.”

The latest Cisco tests follow on Verizon’s move last year to upgrade its fiber core packet network using Juniper Networks equipment. The carrier said those efforts would quadruple network performance with a path toward future growth while also reducing resource requirements, and tied the upgrade to surging network demands coming from 5G-based wireless and fixed-line services.

“We think of the transport network as a combination of optical routing, everything that we do on the core of the network from a bandwidth processing standpoint,” Koeppe said of its updating work. “So transport connections, fiber, routing, all tightly integrated, meaning all of this equipment has to work together and whether it's Ciena, Juniper or Cisco, we as the integrator of this network have to ensure that our partners are extremely well aligned with capabilities and we are driving that innovation roadmap across all of them.”

CORRECTION: This story was updated to correct that the Cisco NCS 1014 device is a transponder and that the ROADMs manage the optical signal path onto or off of the fiber.