Ciena announced that it is working with engineering researchers at the University of Waterloo to develop solutions to help network operators and Internet providers address to the ever increasing demand for faster data transmission over the Internet.
The partners stated that the research relationship has received funding support from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC).
A key area of the University of Waterloo’s partnership with Ciena focuses on realising the maximum possible capacity from the optical cables that run under the oceans and which handle around 95% of intercontinental communications, including an estimated $10 trillion per day in financial transactions. Ciena noted that the reliable, high-speed transmission of huge amounts of data over undersea cables is increasingly important in fields including healthcare and academic research.
For the research program, Amir Khandani, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Waterloo, is leading a team of post-doctoral fellows and graduate students that are developing algorithms designed to efficiently and rapidly correct errors, including lost or dropped bits of data, that occur during extremely high-speed, long-distance optical transmission.
When incorporated on the electronic chips that are built into equipment for receiving and transmitting data, the algorithms developed by the Waterloo team can free up cable capacity, while also enabling the faster correction of errors in line with other technological advances in optical communications.
Under the three-year partnership, announced at an event at the University of Waterloo, Mr. Khandani holds the position of Ciena/NSERC Industrial Research Chair on Network Information Theory of Optical Channels. Ciena noted that the relationship between Waterloo Engineering and Ciena has already produced seven U.S. patents, with additional patents pending.
