DFA and Ciena Shatter Fibre Capacity Records in World-First Trial in Partnership with Willcom

DFA and Ciena announced that they have achieved a landmark breakthrough in fibre capacity - delivering more than 4 times the performance of previous trials.

In this world-first trial, using Ciena’s innovative WaveRouter and WaveLogic 6 Extreme solutions, DFA successfully transmitted 1.6 Tbps (terabits per second) over a single wavelength – setting a new performance benchmark for IP/optical convergence.

The trial was conducted over a 40 km stretch between Isando and Midrand, using DFA’s high-capacity core network. The route chosen replicates a previous trial that had demonstrated 400 Gbps capability.

“This greatly enhances the capability of DFA’s existing network and gives us the confidence that we can meet the growing digital demands of our customers,” said Andreas Uys, Chief Technology Officer at MAZIV, DFA’s parent company. “We can seamlessly onboard next-generation connectivity services in selected regions before scaling them nationwide.”

This achievement follows Phase 1 of DFA’s ambitious R800 Million network upgrade, which included deploying Dry Underground Distribution Cabinets (DUDCs) in high-density areas to speed up service delivery.

“We were able to deploy this groundbreaking technology because of the high quality of our newly upgraded fibre infrastructure and the robust design of our core network to handle the additional traffic,” said Uys.

Powered by Ciena’s WaveLogic capabilities and deployed by Ciena partner, Willcom, WaveRouter will allow DFA to deliver greater scalability, flexibility, and sustainability by integrating 400 Gbps, 800 Gbps, and 1.6 Tbps services within a single router.

“As the leading dark fibre provider in South Africa, DFA is taking bold steps to support the growing connectivity needs of its customers,” said Virginie Hollebecque, Vice President, EMEA, Ciena. “With Ciena’s optical and routing technologies, DFA is better positioned to deliver high-scale 400 Gbps aggregation today while preparing its network to scale up to 1.6 Tbps and beyond.”

By combining Ciena’s state-of-the-art optical and routing technologies in a unified, multi-layer architecture, DFA can fully harness the advantages of coherent routing to build a simpler, more robust network. Additionally, Ciena’s Navigator Network Control Suite (Navigator NCS) provides DFA with one point of control to automate multi-layer network operations and scale wide area network (WAN) traffic, delivering capacity precisely when and where it’s needed.

Source: DFA and Ciena media announcement