Vodafone Idea has deployed Ciena’s WaveLogic 6 Extreme coherent optical technology across its transport network in India, achieving 1.6 terabits per second on a single optical channel on its meshed Data Centre Interconnect network — a milestone that positions the operator to support 400G and 800G services as AI-driven bandwidth demand accelerates.
The deployment uses Ciena’s WL6e running on the 6500 platform, which the vendor describes as the industry’s first 1.6Tb/s coherent optical solution. Vi is using the technology to raise the capacity ceiling of its existing fibre infrastructure without proportional increases in cost per bit or power consumption, targeting hyperscaler, enterprise and data centre interconnect revenue as new growth vectors.
“Vi by doing this is positioning a network to support AI workloads and capture new growth opportunities through enterprise, mobility and data centre,” said Jagbir Singh, CTO of Vodafone Idea.
The deployment is strategically significant given Vi’s position in the Indian market. The operator is India’s third-ranked mobile provider behind Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel, having faced prolonged financial difficulties that led to the Indian government acquiring a 48.99 per cent stake in the company in 2025. The optical upgrade signals a deliberate infrastructure investment push as Vi seeks to differentiate on network performance and position itself competitively for enterprise and hyperscaler contracts rather than competing purely on consumer pricing.
Ciena has been expanding its Indian footprint aggressively, having previously deployed its WL5e technology with fibre provider Microscan and supplied optical solutions to Bharti Airtel for its 5G backhaul. The WL6e win with Vi reinforces the vendor’s position as the dominant coherent optics supplier across India’s three major operator accounts.
Editor’s Note: For MEA Tech Watch readers tracking the intersection of optical infrastructure and AI workloads, the Vi deployment is a useful indicator of how operators outside the Gulf are upgrading transport networks specifically to capture hyperscaler revenue — the same strategic logic that underpins infrastructure conversations across Saudi Arabia and the UAE, where data centre density is growing faster than existing optical capacity was designed to accommodate.
