OKI and Partners Achieve World's First Demonstration of Broadband, Bidirectional Transmission over a Single Hollow Core Fiber

Oki Electric Industry Co., Ltd. (OKI), Lightera Japan Ltd. (Lightera), and Keio University announced the results of a next-generation optical network demonstration using Hollow Core Fiber (HCF). The project was conducted as part of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications' R&D project, 'R&D on Advanced Optical Transmission Technology Contributing to a Green Society: JPMI00316,' utilizing Keio University's 'Open Research Center for Future Optical Networks.'

By combining a prototype of a next-generation optical line system developed primarily by OKI with HCF developed by Lightera, the partners successfully achieved the world's first bidirectional transmission of broadband wavelength-multiplexed signals ranging from 1.26μm to 1.58μm over a single core. Furthermore, they confirmed the minimization of power consumption through optimal capacity switching. Once commercialized, this technology is expected to reduce power consumption to 1/10th of current levels while coping with the increase in communication traffic.

Moving forward, OKI plans to promote use-case research leveraging the features of HCF in addition to next-generation PON systems, aiming to commercialize access systems required for 100G-PON and IOWN®. Lightera will proceed with characteristic improvements and mass production towards early commercialization of HCF, while planning further demonstrations with various users by leveraging Keio University's open lab.