Altibox Carrier achieves world’s first 1.6 Tb/s submarine cable

Altibox Carrier achieves world’s first 1.

Altibox Carrier transmits 1.6 Tb/s single-carrier wavelength in live subsea link
Utilises Ciena’s WaveLogic 6 Extreme on NO-UK system between Norway and UK

What happened: Record-setting subsea transmission reaches 1.6 Tb/s over in-service cable

Altibox Carrier has demonstrated the world’s first 1.6 terabits-per-second single-carrier wavelength over an active submarine fibre cable using Ciena’s WaveLogic 6 Extreme (WL6e). The trial ran error-free on Altibox’s NO-UK system connecting Norway and the UK, achieving a spectral efficiency greater than 9 b/s/Hz. This live, high-capacity trial proves that terabit-scale transmission is now achievable in real-world subsea networks.

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Why it’s important

This milestone dramatically increases the potential capacity of subsea infrastructure. It shows how continental networks can scale efficiently. The achievement is timely given surging demand for AI compute, cloud services, and media delivery traffic. It lays the groundwork for resilient, high-capacity routes that can support Europe’s expanding digital and data centre ecosystem.