TE SubCom and Nistica Announce Availability of Undersea Qualified Wavelength Selective Switch Modules

TE SubCom, a TE Connectivity Ltd. company and an industry pioneer in undersea communications technology, and Nistica, a Fujikura subsidiary supplying agile optical networking solutions, announced the availability of fully qualified wavelength selective switch (WSS) modules to be used in undersea networks.

The joint development program between TE SubCom and Nistica focused on a rigorous design and development process to ensure the high-reliability requirements of undersea systems were met. The teams completed Highly Accelerated Life Testing (HALT) and all undersea reliability milestones, thus clearing the way for product deployment.

“SubCom continues to innovate to deliver the most technologically advanced and cost-effective solutions to our customers,” said Neal Bergano, chief technology officer, TE SubCom. “Our grid-flexible branching units will improve network capacity and robustness as well as flexibility in next-generation undersea networks. As cable owners seek out future-proof technologies to route and equalize spectrally efficient modulation formats, SubCom stands ready to deliver to their requirements.”

Under the counsel of TE SubCom, Nistica modified their terrestrial WSS modules to meet unique undersea high-reliability requirements, while maintaining differentiating features, namely, multiple 1xN WSS within one package, a 5.2THz bandwidth window and a grid-flexible channel plan with a granularity of 3.125 GHz. These features allow SubCom to provide reliable system architectures at the highest spectral efficiencies.

“We are delighted to have completed the undersea qualification work with TE SubCom,” remarked Ashish Vengsarkar, CEO of Nistica. “The lessons learned from this project can be applied in the deployment of future products for our terrestrial customers as well. The acceptance and deployment of our technology by SubCom in one of the most rigorous undersea applications demonstrates our industry leadership in reliable, high-performance optical switching.”