wiredinUSA February 2014

BT and Alcatel-Lucent have demonstrated data transmission speeds of 1.4Tbps over a fiber optic link, claiming it to be the fastest ever achieved in commercial grade hardware in a real world environment. The trial was conducted during October and November 2013, over an existing 410km fiber optic link between two BT sites – the BT Tower in London and its Adastral Park research campus in Ipswich – using Alcatel equipment. BT and Alcatel-Lucent said that the speed of 1.4Tbps was made possible by combining seven 200Gbps channels bundled together to transmit data along the fiber. This was accomplished by reducing the spacing between channels on the fiber from 50GHz to 35GHz delivering, what the companies described as “record breaking spectral efficiency” of 5.7 bits per second per hertz. Thesuccessful trial,performedusingsoftware reconfigurable production equipment, could point the way for high-speed wide area networks (WANs), using existing Alcatel-Lucent equipment to create what has been called a ‘flexible grid’ (Flexgrid) infrastructure. Record transmission over fiber

Harnessing new jobs

InvestBulgaria Agency revealed that Nexans autoelectric is to establish an assembly facility in Pleven, where Elektrokabel Bulgaria, a supplier for Nexans autoelectric group, will produce cable harnesses for European automobile manufacturers. A modern assembly facility of 5,000m 2 will be completed within the year, and manufacturing will begin at the end of 2014. At full capacity, the plant will accommodate around 600 employees in production,administration, logistics,quality assurance and process engineering. Nexans autoelectric, based in southern Germany, selected Pleven after an extensive analysis of the location factors. The good infrastructure, the excellent labor market and theaccession of Bulgaria to the European Union were specifically decisive. Nexans autoelectric develops and produces cabling systems and electro-mechanical components for conventionally powered vehicles as well as for E and hybrid vehicles.

wiredInUSA - February 2014

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