Ribbon Communications announced that it has achieved interoperability of 1.2T optical transmission in partnership with Cisco. The demo, which will be public at OFC 2024, shows interoperability between the Ribbon Apollo 9408 and the Cisco NCS 1014, which both incorporate Acacia's CIM 8 140Gbaud transceiver, and conforms to the OpenROADM bookended model for transponder interoperability while uniquely extending this model for multiple vendors.
Sam Bucci, Chief Operating Officer, Ribbon
We're launching a new era with this demonstration and showcasing a proven interoperable multivendor ecosystem for high performance optical transmission that is a new direction from what has previously been the industry's focus. We're proud to collaborate with Cisco on this critical update, giving operators the confidence to access and deliver 1.2 T transmission speeds without resorting to a single closed solution.
Kyle Hollasch, Lead Analyst for Transport Hardware at Cignal AI
This demo marks an exciting development in the high-performance coherent space. Interoperability is a rarity in optical networking, and typically relies upon lowest-common-denominator technology. Network operators will derive tremendous value from the ability to open up their networks to multiple vendors while simultaneously delivering superior performance.
Bill Gartner, SVP/GM Optical Systems and Optics from Cisco
With the growth of AI and other emerging technologies, network operators are challenged with the complexity of managing multi-vendor networks to keep up with the growing demand for faster speeds. Together with Ribbon, we are demonstrating that now our customers can take advantage of interoperability at the transmission level before standards have been put forth, enabling them to stay on the cutting-edge without being locked into proprietary solutions.
