First dispersion-flattened transpacific undersea system: from design to terabit/s field trial

The 8991-km-long transpacific segment of the Tyco Global Network (TGN) [TGN is a trademark of Tyco Telecommunications, Eatontown, NJ 07724 USA], connecting Hillsboro, Oregon, USA to Toyohashi, Japan, is the first installed dispersion-flattened dense wavelength division multiplexed (DWDM) system. In this paper, we describe the development path bringing this system from the computer design stage to a field trial, which confirms that the installed segment can support the design capacity of 96/spl times/10 Gb/s customer channels per fiber pair. Commercial channels have been provisioned on this segment with satisfactory system margins. Exploratory transmission results at 128/spl times/12.3 Gb/s over this segment are also reported here. The experimental results agree well with our expectations based on the results from our system design simulator.