The buildout uses the Ciena Corp. 6500 Packet-Optical Platform, which is 100Gbit/s capable -- but Tata chose to go with just 40Gbit/s for now.
Deploying 40Gbit/s gave Tata more capacity and a lower cost per gigabit-per-second, says Matthew Ma, Tata's vice president of transport network engineering.
Why this matters
There have been a couple of recent announcements about 100Gbit/s undersea trials, using Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. and Infinera Corp. (Nasdaq: INFN) gear, but Tata's deployment is a reminder that the technology is still new. Specifically, Tata decided no available 100Gbit/s technology is ready for 7,000-kilometer distances yet.
Coming elements such as soft-decision forward error correction (FEC) would help, Ma says.
Ma expects to start his serious 100Gbit/s shopping in about six months, when more equipment is available. He admits Ciena, while not a shoo-in, has an obvious advantage. "The common equipment is deployed. It would make the 100Gbit/s deployment relatively easy, almost -- not quite, but almost -- plug-and-play."
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