OFS Introduces Ultrawave® Sla+ Fiber for Submarine Systems Transmitting at 100Gb/s and Beyond
- Designed for Cost-Effective Coherent Transport over Trans-Oceanic Distances, Fiber Offers Larger Effective Area and Lower Cabled Attenuation -

OFC/ NFOEC 2012, Booth 2125, Los Angeles, California, March 5, 2012 - OFS, designer, manufacturer and supplier of leading edge fiber optic network products, today introduced UltraWave® SLA+ ocean fiber for high data-rate submarine networks.

UltraWave SLA+ fiber is designed for cost-effective, coherent transport using advanced modulation formats to 100Gb/s and beyond in submarine systems. It is fully compliant with the ITU G.654 standard for cutoff-shifted fiber.

The new fiber marks a significant enhancement of OFS' UltraWave SLA fiber by providing a larger effective area (from 110 to 130µm2), which enables the launch of higher signal power into the span, while lowering cable attenuation. The UltraWave SLA+ fiber is part of a broader OFS focus on higher effective area and lower loss fiber products that support the evolving cost and performance targets in today's submarine transmission lines.

The advanced performance of UltraWave SLA+ fiber was recently demonstrated in a 100Gb/s coherent transmission system over trans-Atlantic distances at ultra-high 10Tb/s total capacity on a single fiber. The demonstration, which was conducted on a straight line coherent optimized test bed that simulates undersea systems, including amplifiers and fiber, transmitted 100 x 100Gb/s (10Tb/s) error-free capacity over 6,400 km with significant system performance margin. In another demonstration, UltraWave SLA+ fiber transmitted 112 Gb/s Pol-Mux QPSK signals over 10,000 kilometers with EDFA amplification.

When paired with OFS' UltraWave IDF fiber, the new fiber also forms a slope-matched pair with low residual dispersion across the entire C-band for ultra long-haul distances.

UltraWave SLA+ fiber is manufactured using OFS' proprietary vapor axial deposition (VAD) process, which produces a fiber with zero water peak (ZWP) performance and ultra- low polarization mode dispersion (PMD). The ZWP performance is optimized for efficient 2nd-order Raman pumping in unrepeatered systems.

UltraWave SLA+ is the latest offering in OFS' UltraWave family of ocean fibers. Designed for ultra-long haul networks, these products were developed to manage fiber nonlinearities, chromatic dispersion and dispersion slope across the C- and L-bands. This technology dramatically increases the number of available channels for Dense-Wave Division Multiplexing (DWDM) transmission.

Like all OFS ocean fibers, UltraWave SLA+ fiber can be colored and spliced to meet stringent cable requirements. Fibers are selected to meet customer specifications for number of fibers, colors, lengths, and transmission properties, and then assembled into sets. Final measurements help ensure customer specified performance for all fibers in the set.

About OFS

OFS is a world-leading designer, manufacturer and provider of optical fiber, optical fiber cable, FTTX, optical connectivity and specialty photonics products. Our marketing, manufacturing and research divisions listen to customers and work together to provide innovative products and solutions that traverse many different applications as they link people and machines worldwide. Between continents, between cities, around neighborhoods, and into homes and businesses of digital consumers we provide the right optical fiber, optical cable and components for efficient, cost-effective transmission.

OFS' corporate lineage dates back to 1876 and includes technology powerhouses such as AT&T (NYSE: T) and Lucent Technologies (now Alcatel-Lucent, NYSE: ALU). Today, OFS is owned by Furukawa Electric, a multi-billion dollar global leader in optical communications. Headquartered in Norcross (near Atlanta) Georgia, U.S., OFS is a global provider with facilities in Avon, Connecticut; Carrollton, Georgia; Somerset, New Jersey; and Sturbridge, Massachusetts, as well as in Denmark, Germany and Russia.

For more information, please visit www.ofsoptics.com