The trial used Ciena’s WaveLogic 6 Extreme (WL6e) coherent optics over an unregenerated link
In sum – what to know:
Record distance – 800 Gb/s transmitted over 16,608 km without regeneration on a transpacific subsea link.
Higher capacity – The trial achieved 18 Tb/s per fiber pair, indicating increased throughput potential.
Efficiency gains – Results of the trial show reduced power use and smaller equipment footprint for subsea deployments.
Ciena and Meta have reported a transmission of 800 Gb/s over 16,608 km on a transpacific submarine cable, claiming a new distance record for a single-carrier 800G wavelength.
The test was conducted on a Meta-owned fiber pair within the Bifrost cable system, which transports high-capacity data traffic between Singapore, Indonesia, The Philippines, Guam, and the U.S. West Coast.
The trial used Ciena’s WaveLogic 6 Extreme (WL6e) coherent optical technology and was carried out over an unregenerated link, meaning the signal traveled the full distance without intermediate regeneration.
In addition to the single-wavelength result, the companies also reported a total capacity of 18 Tb/s per fiber pair during the trial. The system operated with additional margin, indicating that the configuration could sustain performance under real-world conditions.
“These performance milestones are more than technical achievements — they reflect the evolving network requirements of AI and cloud-scale innovation. This means managing an internal network with high capacity and ultra-low latency across continents to better train and deploy AI models and associated services. This technology firmly positions organizations like Meta to manage an AI-ready infrastructure over long distances,” Brian Lavallée, senior director for market and competitive intelligence at Ciena, told RCR Wireless News.
He said that the the results of the trials were ‘remarkable’ in terms of space and power efficiency — a critical advantage in subsea landing stations where every rack unit and watt matters, according to Lavallée.
Lavallée also said that demand for the internet and digital capacity is at its highest point, buoyed by AI, new cloud services, and other emerging technologies, adding that these technologies are managed through a global network anchored by almost 600 submarine cables.
