Constl, a pan-India carrier-neutral connectivity provider and subsidiary of Space World Group, has successfully completed a 1.6 Tbps channel transmission over its live national long-distance (NLD) network across the Mumbai-Pune corridor, using Ciena’s WaveLogic 6 Extreme (WL6e) technology.
The achievement makes Constl the first in India to successfully complete a 1.6 Tbps channel over an NLD network, according to Ciena, and marks a further step in Constl’s effort to scale high-capacity optical connectivity across its network. The milestone follows Constl and Ciena’s 1 Tbps transmission achievement in 2025, representing a 60% increase in demonstrated channel capacity.
The latest transmission was completed on a live production network, rather than a laboratory or test environment. This demonstrates Constl’s ability to deploy next-generation optical capacity under operational network conditions and strengthens its network scalability for bandwidth-intensive services.
“Achieving 1.6 Tbps on a live production network across Mumbai – Pune corridor marks another important step in Constl’s network evolution, enabling us to support 800GE services and growing AI bandwidth demands with greater efficiency and a lower cost per bit,” said Ankit Goel, Chairman and Founder, Space World Group and Founder, Constl. “With our growing pan-India fibre network, these advances in optical capacity enable us to scale our network and support the increasingly demanding requirements of hyperscalers, data centres and AI-driven applications.”
From 1 Tbps to 1.6 Tbps: scaling optical capacity
The latest achievement builds on Constl and Ciena’s earlier 1 Tbps transmission across a 1,450-km Mumbai-Chennai long-haul route in 2025, which was completed without regeneration. That milestone demonstrated Constl’s ability to deploy high-capacity optical transmission over long-haul distances. The progression to 1.6 Tbps on a live NLD network further expands the capacity available per optical channel and supports Constl’s roadmap for terabit-scale connectivity across key network corridors.
Ciena’s WL6e technology supports up to 1.6 Tbps coherent capacity and is designed to extend 800G connectivity across long-distance network links, while improving spectral efficiency and reducing cost and power requirements per bit.
For Constl, the higher-capacity optical channel provides additional headroom to address growing requirements from hyperscalers, data centres, cloud platforms and AI-driven applications, where increasing volumes of data need to move between compute, storage and network infrastructure.
Supporting India’s growing digital infrastructure requirements
India’s expanding data-centre, cloud and AI ecosystem is increasing demand for high-capacity connectivity between major digital infrastructure hubs. Constl is leveraging WL6e to scale multi-terabit capacity across its NLD and metro routes, connecting key cities and data-centre locations.
The company’s network strategy focuses on increasing capacity while maintaining the scalability and network economics required to support bandwidth-intensive digital services. Constl currently describes its network as a pan-India, carrier-neutral fibre infrastructure offering high-capacity and ultra-low-latency connectivity, with connectivity across 13+ cities and 100+ data centres.
“Robust digital infrastructure is critical to advancing India’s AI ambitions,” said Prashant Ramesh Malkani, Vice President & General Manager, India, Ciena. “With its pan-India network powered by Ciena’s best-in-class optical technologies, Constl is well positioned to support this next phase of growth and meet the evolving needs of hyperscalers and AI infrastructure.”
The 1.6 Tbps milestone reinforces Constl’s focus on building a scalable optical infrastructure layer capable of supporting the next phase of India’s digital economy, including AI workloads, hyperscale connectivity, data-centre interconnection and other high-bandwidth applications.
