Nokia Bell Labs Set the World Records and Innovations in Fiber Optics

Nokia Bell Labs today announced that its researchers have set the world records for the highest single carrier bit rate at 1.52 Terabits per second (Tbit/s) over 80 km of standard single-mode fiber — the equivalent of simultaneously streaming 1.5 million YouTube videos – which is four times the market’s current state-of-the-art of approximately 400 Gigabits per second. This world record, along with other optical networking innovations announced today, will further strengthen Nokia’s ability to develop networks for the 5G era that meet the ever-growing data, capacity and latency demands of industrial Internet of Things and consumer applications.

Nokia Bell Labs set the World Records and Innovations in Fiber Optics

Several of these achievements were presented as part of Nokia Bell Labs’ post-deadline research papers at the Optical Fiber Communications Conference & Exhibition (OFC) being held this week in San Diego. Additionally, Nokia Bell Labs researcher Di Che was awarded the OFC Tingye Li Innovation Prize. Named after the late Tingye Li, a Bell Labs luminary in the field of optical communications, the prize is given to an early career professional who has demonstrated innovation in their research.

Marcus Weldon, Nokia CTO and President of Nokia Bell Labs, said:

“It has been fifty years since the inventions of the low-loss fiber and the associated optics. From the original 45 Megabit-per-second systems to more than 1 Terabit-per-second systems of today – a more than 20,000-fold increase in 40 years – to create the fundamental underpinning of the internet and the digital societies as we know it. The role of Nokia Bell Labs has always been to push the envelope and redefine the limits of what’s possible. Our latest world records in optical research are yet another proof point that we are inventing even faster and more robust networks that will underpin the next industrial revolution.”

The highest single-carrier bitrate at 1.52 Terabits per second was set by a Nokia Bell Labs optical research team led by Fred Buchali. This record was established by employing a new 128 Gigasample/second converter enabling the generation of signals at 128 Gbaud symbol rate and information rates of the individual symbols beyond 6.0 bits/symbol/polarization. This accomplishment breaks the team’s own record of 1.3 Tbit/s set in September 2019 while supporting Nokia’s record-breaking field trial with Etisalat