MCI WorldCom Tests Optical Network

The OPTera 1600G optical amplification system and OPTera LH platform from Nortel Networks, headquartered in Brampton, Ontario, Canada, were put through their paces in a commercial live trial by MCI WorldCom on a span linking Dallas and Longview, Texas. The system, which operates on a 10-Gb/s platform, carried Internet, voice and data traffic at 1 Tb/s over a single fiber.

The system uses dense wavelength division multiplexing to transmit up to 160 channels per fiber. Nortel expects the OPTera 1600G to be available in the second quarter of this year. The OPTera LH backbone system is already available.