Telxius deploys Nokia 800G coherent pluggables across three continents

Telxius has begun deploying Nokia's ICE-X 800G ZR/ZR+ coherent pluggable optics across its terrestrial transport networks in Europe, the United States and Latin America. The rollout uses IP-over-DWDM networking to add capacity on existing fibre infrastructure, with the operator citing reductions in power consumption and rack space alongside lower per-unit expansion costs.

The deployment also incorporates Nokia's Transcend network automation suite, giving Telxius centralised visibility across its optical transport layer, including fault monitoring, performance management and coordinated service provisioning. The company operates more than 100,000 km of subsea cable and terrestrial fibre spanning Europe and the Americas, serving hyperscalers, carriers and enterprise customers across major digital corridors.

The technology and the subsea trial

The terrestrial rollout follows a joint demonstration in which Nokia's ICE-X 800G ZR+ pluggable delivered 400 Gb/s per wavelength across more than 5,600 km on Telxius' BRUSA subsea cable system. Both parties described this as an industry record for the technology over a live subsea route, though the claim has not been verified against a named third-party reference.

Jesús María Rubio, Chief Technology and Information Officer at Telxius, said the deployment "reinforces Telxius' position at the forefront of optical innovation" and underlines the operator's commitment to early adoption of technologies that bring "clear benefits to our customers and our global network." Ron Johnson, Senior Vice President and General Manager for Optical Networks at Nokia, framed the announcement in terms of demand: "As AI workloads drive unprecedented growth in traffic between hyperscale data centers and global network hubs, operators need transport solutions that combine scalability, efficiency, and operational simplicity."

Telxius did not disclose the number of route kilometres being upgraded in the terrestrial deployment, the total contract value, or a completion timeline.

Market context

The push to 800G coherent pluggables reflects broader pressure on international wholesale carriers to scale capacity without proportionate growth in power draw or physical footprint. Coherent pluggable optics, which integrate transceiver and DSP functions into a standard QSFP-DD or OSFP module, allow operators to upgrade router line cards rather than deploy separate transponder shelves, lowering both capex and operational complexity.

Nokia competes in this segment against Ciena, Infinera and a set of merchant silicon vendors including Marvell, whose coherent DSP chipsets underpin a number of third-party pluggable designs. The Open ROADM and OpenConfig standards communities have been pushing for interoperable coherent pluggables, which would reduce vendor lock-in for operators such as Telxius that span multiple geographic regions with heterogeneous network layers.

Demand signals from hyperscale and AI infrastructure are accelerating upgrade cycles across the wholesale carrier market. Traffic between data centres used for AI training and inference is growing faster than general internet traffic, and long-haul operators are under commercial pressure to demonstrate that their networks can absorb this growth without multi-year lead times for capacity additions. For Telxius, which sits at the intersection of subsea cable landings and terrestrial backhaul, the ability to upgrade incrementally on existing fibre is a meaningful cost and speed-to-market advantage.

The company has not indicated whether the deployment will extend to its subsea infrastructure beyond the BRUSA trial, nor whether it is evaluating 1.6T pluggable roadmap options from Nokia or other vendors as a follow-on investment.