Nokia, Windstream, and Colt have successfully completed an 800 Gigabit Ethernet (800GbE) trial spanning approximately 8,500 km between London and Chicago. The trial linked two of the world’s largest financial trading hubs and demonstrated energy-efficient, next-generation networking technologies across a combined subsea and terrestrial route.
By connecting Colt’s transatlantic subsea cable and terrestrial fibre network with Windstream Wholesale’s low-latency US optical fibre Intelligent Converged Optical Network (ICON), the partners monitored speed, performance and latency end-to-end. The trial proved the world’s first transoceanic 800GbE service transport from router to router over 1Tbps optical transport, showcasing advances in wavelength capacity, transmission speed and signal integrity across long distances.
Nokia supplied its sixth-generation Photonic Service Engine (PSE-6s) coherent optics and 7750 Service Router (SR) platforms, which played a central role in achieving the trial’s performance and power-efficiency goals. These systems enabled ultra-high wavelength capacity while prioritising energy savings—important for operating at the scale required by global service providers and large enterprises.
Moving to 800G doubles capacity relative to prior generation links and marks a major step forward for bandwidth-intensive use cases. Higher-capacity, low-latency links are particularly relevant for AI data centre interconnects, content delivery networks and financial market data networks, all of which demand predictable, high-throughput connectivity across continents.
Buddy Bayer, Chief Operating Officer at Colt Technology Services, highlighted the importance of continuous innovation: “Pushing the boundaries of technology innovation is fundamental to our commitment to customers. It ensures we remain ahead of market needs and ready for the next questions our clients will ask.”
The success of the trial creates practical opportunities to introduce commercial 800GbE connectivity services for global business customers. The three organisations are now evaluating options to bring these capabilities to market, which could transform subsea and terrestrial communications for multinational organisations.
Joe Scattareggia, President of Windstream Wholesale, described the achievement as a “true game-changer for global connectivity,” stressing that the partnership enables unprecedented bandwidth capabilities required to support AI-driven applications and other data-heavy services worldwide.
Demand for high-capacity, low-latency connections continues to grow rapidly, driven by expanding cloud adoption and increasingly data-intensive applications across industries such as finance, healthcare and media. The ability to move large volumes of data at 800Gbps across thousands of kilometres could enable new workflows, improve real-time decision-making, and reduce the friction of global digital operations.
As enterprises accelerate digital transformation and scale their global footprints, robust and reliable high-speed connectivity becomes critical. This trial shows that the technical building blocks for intercontinental 800GbE services are viable and may soon be available for commercial deployment.
“Linking two of the world’s most important financial hubs sets a high bar for network capacity, speed, security and reliability,” said Federico Guillén, President of Network Infrastructure at Nokia, underlining the trial’s strategic significance for global networks.
See also: Nokia and ZCorum streamline cable operators’ fibre transition
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