Gridless optical networking field trial: flexible spectrum switching, defragmentation and transport of 10G/40G/100G/555G over 620-km field fiber.

We present results from the first gridless networking field trial with flexible spectrum switching nodes and 620 km of installed fibre links. Signals at 10G, 12.25G, 42.7G, DP-QPSK 40G, DP-QPSK 100G and 555G are generated, successfully transported and switched using flexible, custom spectrum allocation per channel. Spectrum defragmentation is demonstrated using integrated SOA-MZI wavelength converters. Results show error-free end-to-end performance (BER<1e-9) for the OOK channels and good pre-FEC BER performance with sufficient margin to FEC limit for the 40G and 100G coherent channels as well as for the 555G super-channel.