Infinera announced it has successfully completed the industry's first testing of point-to-multipoint coherent pluggable transceiver technology in Japan in collaboration with Sumitomo Electric. The testing showcased multiple optical transmission demonstrations and the role that XR optics technology can play in helping network operators in Japan cost- effectively keep pace with relentless bandwidth growth driven by 5G, high-speed broadband, cloud-based services, and data center interconnect. XR optics is the industry's first coherent optical solution that can solve the challenges caused by the misalignment between network traffic patterns and the technology used to transport that traffic at the optical layer.

Benefits include a significant reduction in total cost of ownership (up to and in some cases more than 70%), dramatic network simplification, and an unprecedented level of network flexibility. As members of the industry's Open XR Forum, Infinera and Sumitomo Electric are collaborating to accelerate adoption of intelligent coherent point-to-multip joint network architectures and drive standardization of networking interfaces to ensure ease of multi-vendor interoperability and an open, multi-source solution ecosystem. Conducted in Infinera's Tokyo lab facilities and showcased for Japan's leading network operators, the XR optics point- to-multipoint integration testing was implemented over an existing PON network using Infinera ICE-X 100G and 400G coherent pluggables transceivers hosted in the Sumitomo Electric FTU 9100 metro/access aggregation switch.

The test showcased how XR optics can increase capacity and reach by orders of magnitude by overlaying coherent wavelengths over existing single-fiber (bidirectional) PON networks.