Analysers sweep through transatlantic cable: News from Exfo Electro-Optical Engineering

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Polarisation-mode dispersion and chromatic dispersion analysers from EXFO Electro-Optical Engineering have successfully characterised a 5513km undersea optical network belonging to Hibernia Atlantic, an Irish-based transatlantic carrier. The proprietary PMD (patent pending) and CD (patented) analysers, housed inside EXFO's FTB-400 modular platform, swept through more than 120 erbium-doped fibre amplifiers (EDFAs) along an optical network lining the ocean floor between Southport, England and Halifax, Canada. These latest test trials on Hibernia Atlantic's network marked the first time that a portable solution carried out dual PMD-CD tests on an undersea transatlantic optical network.

"The results of these test trials with EXFO have proven to be conclusive", said Philip Pilgrim, Submarine Transmission Specialist at Hibernia Atlantic.

"Not only did their dispersion testing allow us to verify critical aspects of our system's optical performance prior to loading customers, but also by revealing very low PMD levels, confirms that the system is suitable for 40Gbit/s wavelengths in the future".

"We knew that our dual PMD-CD test solution could characterise an undersea optical network with the size and degree of complexity inherent to Hibernia Atlantic's, but it's gratifying to see theory put into practice", said tienne Gagnon, Vice-President of Product Management at EXFO.

"The beauty of this solution is that it can apply to metro and edge networks as well as to long-haul and ultra long-haul networks.

The bottom line is that telecommunications carriers and systems vendors alike will benefit by reducing the cost of operating and manufacturing their optical networks".

Combined with the highly intuitive graphical user interface and all-in-one configuration of the PC-centric, Windows-based FTB-400 platform, EXFO's PMD and CD Analysers represent the best-in-class solution for high-end dispersion testing.

A single optical source completes the test set to allow significant savings in testing time and cost.

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Analysers sweep through transatlantic cable

Polarisation-mode dispersion and chromatic dispersion analysers have been successfully used to characterise a 5513km undersea optical network belonging to Hibernia Atlantic.