Field demonstration of 10-Gb/s line-rate transmission on an installed transoceanic submarine lightwave cable

We report the successful field demonstration of 10 Gb/s NRZ line rate transmission on the installed TransPacific Cable (TPC-5) Segment G. Using prototype transmitters, receivers and a bit-synchronous 10-GHz polarization scrambler, we achieved long-term error-free transmission with a bit-error rate below 10 on a 4230-km-long installed fiber cable. We also obtained a bit-error-rate as low as 10/sup -15/ for 8460-km transmission. The measured Q-values for 4230-, 8460-, and 12 690-km transmission are 20, 16.5, and 12.5 dB, respectively.