Today’s telecom news includes announcements on Lite Coms, Lightera, Echola Systems, Boeing Defence Australia, Optical Switches for AI Network Testing, among others.
Lite Coms Wins Boeing Defence Australia SATCOM Role for LAND 4140 Network
Lite Coms has been selected by Boeing Defence Australia to supply LITE SAT 1.3A tactical satellite terminals for the Australian Defence Force’s LAND 4140 LAND C4 modernisation programme. The auto-acquire terminals provide resilient beyond-line-of-sight communications and are designed for rapid, tool-free deployment in difficult environments. Lite Coms says its systems support LEO, MEO, GEO and HEO satellite networks, enabling constellation-independent connectivity. The company has delivered more than 10,000 multi-orbit, multi-band terminals worldwide and offers 18 tactical SATCOM systems. The LAND 4140 award expands Lite Coms’ presence in Australian defence communications and demonstrates growing demand for transport infrastructure capable of dynamically using multiple satellite architectures.
Lightera Multicore Fiber Cuts Fiber Count 75% in 50-km Optical Network Trial
Lightera has demonstrated its multicore fiber technology in an OIF multi-vendor interoperability programme, including 500-metre and 50-km optical links. The company’s fiber integrates four cores inside a standard 125-micron cladding diameter, with a 40-micron core pitch and ITU-T G.657.A2 cores. Lightera says the architecture can reduce physical fiber count by 75 percent compared with conventional single-mode fiber while cutting space and weight requirements by as much as four times. The technology uses Space Division Multiplexing to increase transmission density within each fiber. The demonstration is relevant to future telecom backbone, subsea, 5G/6G and AI-data-center networks where rapidly increasing bandwidth requirements are putting pressure on available fiber capacity and conduit space.
Echola Launches 800G and 1.6T Optical Switches for AI Network Testing
Echola Systems has introduced OPX4D-SM and OPX8D-SM Dual LC OptiShare switches supporting 800G and 1.6T optical connectivity for testing high-capacity AI and data-center networks. The systems use paired duplex LC interfaces in 2×FR4 configurations and standard single-mode fiber. The OPX4D supports four devices under test, while OPX8D supports eight; custom configurations can scale to 32 devices sharing a single optical testing resource. Traffic remains entirely in the optical domain without optical-electrical-optical conversion, packet processing or electrical regeneration. HTTPS, SSH and REST APIs support automated testing. The architecture targets equipment manufacturers, optical-component suppliers and telecom laboratories validating increasingly high-speed switches, line cards and GPU-cluster network infrastructure while reducing duplication of expensive test equipment.