Sumitomo Electric Commences Shipping of Terrestrial Optical Fiber Cable Made of Low-Loss, Large Effective Area Fibers

Sumitomo Electric Industries, Ltd. has developed a terrestrial optical fiber cable incorporating the pure-silica-core, low-loss, large effective area(Aeff) fiber PureAdvance™-110. This cable was selected by a major carrier for their trunk transmission lines as the world's first*¹ commercial application of its kind. The shipping of this cable was completed in April.

There is growing demand for optical fiber cables capable of efficient signal transmission to meet the challenge of raising the capacity of trunk systems due to the shift to fifth-generation mobile systems (5G) and to increasing video data traffic. To fulfill this demand, Sumitomo Electric has developed a terrestrial optical fiber cable using the pure-silica-core, low-loss, large Aeff optical fiber PureAdvance™-110.

This cable is suitable for long-haul transmissions by a digital coherent system operating at a transmission rate of 100 Gbps or higher. With its capability of accepting high-power optical signals, the cable can extend transmission distances (Fig.1) or reduce communication network construction costs due to the installation of fewer optical amplifiers (Fig.2).

The product incorporates the optical fiber PureAdvance™-110, which makes the most of Sumitomo Electric's long history in pure-silica-core fiber technologies. Excellent for long-haul, high-capacity transmissions, the pure-silica-core, low-loss, large Aeff optical fiber has been traditionally used in submarine cables. Sumitomo Electric has now applied it to a terrestrial cable. In addition to compliant with Recommendation ITU-T*² G.654.E for fibers designed exclusively for transmission wavelengths of 1550 nm and higher, the features of the new fiber include:

(1)A large 110 μm² effective area (Aeff) of the core ensures high transmission rates, while typical fibers have an Aeff of 80 μm². Optical fibers are subject to transmission loss caused by bending, which rises with increasing Aeff. It is difficult to retain the low-loss characteristic of fibers when made into a cable. However, Sumitomo Electric's slotted core ribbon technology, the industry's best, realizes an extreme low-loss characteristic of 0.17 dB/km (typical value) in cable.

(2)Made into a 4-fiber ribbon slotted-core cable widely used in Japan, up to 200 fibers can be arranged. Even if mass-fusion spliced, 4-fiber ribbons are comparable to regular fibers in connection loss. Mass-fusion splicing reduces connection time, enabling reduced networking costs and construction time.
Additionally, 4-fiber ribbons can be made into a cable in a water blocking (WB) structure using water swellable tape around the slotted-core, eliminating the need for gel-filling and enabling easier handling.

In addition to this cable, Sumitomo Electric is planning to launch a variety of cables to meet customers' specific fiber count and cable type requirements.

*1 Confirmed by Sumitomo Electric

*2 The ITU-Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T) is a sector of the International Telecommunication Union in charge of formulating standards for the communications sector.