In order to inrease network capacity in advance of the World Cup, which started yesterday, Gulf Bridge International (GBI) has deployed Infinera’s ICE6 800G optical engine throughout its submarine and terrestrial networks connecting the Middle East and Europe. With the ICE6 upgrade, GBI’s network capacity is doubled and connections up to 800G per wavelength are made available.
By utilizing the concepts of open optical networking, GBI was able to quickly and flawlessly incorporate this new technology over its current third-party optical line infrastructure. The use of this technology would enable GBI to offer 400 GbE services to its clients and deliver high-speed World Cup streaming.
To ensure that GBI’s clients have a high-quality, uninterrupted game-day experience during the biggest football competition in the globe and beyond, Infinera’s ICE6-powered GX Series solution would offer the ultra-high capacity required to satisfy escalating bandwidth demand.
“Upgrading our networks with Infinera’s ICE6 solution was easy and seamless, allowing us to leverage our existing optical transport architecture while upgrading our network to meet today’s demand,” said Gavin Rea, Chief Technical Officer (CTO) at GBI. “With the World Cup quickly approaching, it was critical for us to ensure our network had the terabits of capacity needed to give our customers reliable, high-speed service to deliver the best viewing experience. That’s exactly what we’ll be offering our customers across Europe and the Middle East this week thanks to Infinera.”
Key Network Routes Middle East and Europe
With the optical engine from Infinera, GBI can increase spectral efficiency and fiber capacity while lowering the cost per bit of its submarine and terrestrial networks. Nyquist subcarriers, forward error correction gain sharing, and photonic integrated circuit-based technology are a few of the special aspects that would help achieve this.
“Modernizing GBI’s submarine and terrestrial Smart Network with Infinera’s ICE6 solution is a significant step forward in ensuring GBI remains a leading service provider, offering differentiated services such as 400 GbE to its customers,” said Nick Walden, Senior Vice President, Worldwide Sales, Infinera. “GBI operates key routes throughout the Middle East and European markets, and we are pleased to equip them with the highest capacity and most innovative services available.”
