Dec 12, 2022

CENIC Successfully Validates Coherent Pluggables over CENIC’s Production Network

December 13, 2022 La Mirada, CA – The Corporation for Education Network Initiatives in California (CENIC) announced the successful validation of ZR Plus coherent pluggables over CENIC’s production optical line system between Los Angeles and Sunnyvale, spanning a 750 km amplified distance.

Using ZR Plus coherent optics in QSFP-DD form factor installed in a router at each end, CENIC turned up a 300G optical service and confirmed the error-free performance of the service, with a comfortable operating margin.

Coherent pluggable optic technology takes a data signal that would normally be delivered via a transponder at Layer 1 and effectively terminates the data signal directly on a switch or router. This technology eliminates the need for a discrete transponder and as a result, reduces operating costs by reducing space, power, and equipment maintenance costs.

This technology opens up opportunities for CENIC to transition the provisioning of a set of 100G-400G services from transponders to coherent pluggable optics installed in switches and routers. This strategy has the added benefits of efficient spectrum use and simplification of the optical line system, paving the way for CENIC’s multi-layer network automation initiatives.

“We are pleased with these initial results, and we will continue to report to the community as we complete additional validations and adoption of coherent pluggables in our production network,” said Sana Bellamine, CENIC’s Director of Regional and International Infrastructure.

The Los Angeles to Sunnyvale turn-up was completed in close collaboration with Cisco.

CENIC will continue to evaluate the performance and interoperability of coherent pluggable optics with our partners, and will be evaluating the highly anticipated next generation of coherent optics with higher transmit power, which will eliminate the need for external amplification.

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