By Stephen Hardy
STL used the recent India Mobile Congress 2022 to launch the Multiverse line of multicore fiber and cable. The company expects to pair the fiber cable with space-division multiplexing (SDM) transmission technology to provide a 4X capacity improvement per fiber, within the same diameter, for applications such as data centers, 5G networks, and quantum communications.
In this last scenario, STL believes use of the Multiverse multicore fiber can enable the co-existence of quantum communication and telecommunication channels. In response to Lightwave questions, CTO of STL, Dr. Badri Gomatam, wrote via email that the new fiber technology also should benefit use cases such as fiber densification in access networks, large data centers, and terrestrial transport networks.
“Our technology is compatible with current and emerging telecommunications standards. We envision our breakthrough innovations in both the glass technology as well as high-count cabling production to significantly impact the cost of deploying space-division multiplexing,” Gomatam added.
Gomatam said that STL is contemplating cabling with a variety of fiber counts, from 288 to 6912 fibers. In a response to a question about the timing of microcore-enabled cable availability, he wrote that “Our launch of the Multiverse platform at the India Mobile Congress 2022 was extremely well received. We are working closely with our customers and partners at this time as we speak.”
In addition to making fiber and cable, STL also has a systems division; asked if the company also plans to offer SDM transmission technology, Gomatam responded, “We are working very closely with the ecosystem to offer a full solution to the market.”
As the name implies, multicore fiber has more than one transmission core per fiber, and therefore offers the potential of increasing per-fiber transmission capacity by supporting multiple transmissions in the same fiber. The technology is being looked at closely in submarine networks, where SDM is already accepted (see, for example, “Transmission benefits of multicore fiber in submarine cables to be discussed at OFC 2022”).
