Nokia and Rakuten Mobile announced that the two companies have demonstrated the first live 1 Tb/s per channel transmission over Rakuten’s commercial Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexer (DWDM) network. It is a speed increase of 500% on Rakuten’s existing network running at 200 Gb/s. The trial took place over two days in January 2022 and connected data centers located 135 km apart in the Kanto region in Japan.

The 1 Tb/s speed was achieved using coherent transmission powered by Nokia’s Photonic Service Engine (PSE) supporting 1 Tb/s capacity over a 150 GHz optical spectrum. The trial demonstrated the ability to deliver 32 Tb/s per fiber in C-band which can be expanded to 64 Tbps by adding L-band over a Nokia DWDM line system used in Rakuten’s optical network, vital to providing maximum capacity for the ever-increasing data demands and to support the latest generations of routers delivering 800 Gb/s Ethernet.

The Open Line System field trial, over Rakuten’s existing commercial network, used Nokia’s Photonic Service Engine inhouse Digital Signal Processor (DSP), a compact, high capacity, modular optical networking platform, optimized for Data Center Interconnect (DCI) applications over metro, regional and long haul. Rakuten Mobile is scaling up its network capacity to enable 5G connectivity, video, and new applications for its mobile subscribers and business partners. Nokia’s 1 Tb/s solution enables Rakuten to reduce its footprint, improving operational expenditure and flexibility to rollout in data centers.