Coherent routing has seen a significant evolution over the years, particularly with the advent of the 800G ecosystem. Ciena’s Ivana Lemos reflects on key industry shifts, recent announcements, and insights from a Heavy Reading global survey.
Can you believe how quickly the year is flying by? Time isn’t the only thing speeding up—technology advancements are moving just as fast, and the coherent routing landscape is no exception!
There’s been a flurry of activity in the industry lately, so it can be easy to miss some key developments. From new research into deployment trends, to collaborative multi-vendor interoperability testing, and new product innovations – we have been busy.
Let’s dive into the latest happenings in this space.
Survey pulse
We kicked off the year by taking the pulse of Communications Service Providers (CSPs) who have deployed or are planning to deploy coherent routing architectures. We also wanted to gauge how next-gen technologies, like 800G, are shaping their perspectives. To do this, we teamed up with Heavy Reading (HR) for the largest global survey of its kind. Over 240 service providers weighed in, and the results were pretty telling.
First off, coherent routing is now a big part of the network evolution playbook. In the last three years, service providers have shown steadily increasing preference for coherent pluggables in routers, with 59% of the respondents now saying their 400G+ pluggables will be housed in routers and 41% in DWDM systems by 2027.
In fact, this year’s results are a near reversal from a similar 2022 survey, which showed a 61/39% split in favor of DWDM systems.
Heavy Reading analyst Sterling Perrin sits down with Ciena’s Sr. Director of Product Line Management, Rafael Francis, and VP, Product Line Management, Tim Pearson, to review the survey findings and what they mean for the future of coherent routing in telecom.
So, while these trends clearly point to coherent routing as an architectural direction the market is heading in, what challenges are customers still facing when deploying it today?
The findings here are also clear: the software side of things is becoming increasingly important. To that end, 'operational simplicity/improving efficiency’ is the top driver for going with coherent pluggables. But the trick is making it happen, with respondents citing 'ensuring consistent operational practices between coherent pluggables from multiple vendors' as the top-listed barrier to adoption.
The writing is on the wall: without tighter operational integration between the IP and optical layers, you won’t be able to realize all the savings that coherent routing deployments can provide.
Collectively, these trends point to a growing need for end-to-end, multi-layer lifecycle management—a topic we explored in depth at MPLS & SRv6 AI Net World Congress 2025 (MPLS WC).
Trends and takeaways from industry events
Several industry trade shows and conferences in 2025 have spotlighted coherent routing deployment trends, converged design best practices, and the latest 800G advancements.
Let’s first look at MPLS WC, where Rafael Francis kicked off the IP/Optical track by emphasizing that coherent routing architectural decisions should be made from the very beginning, particularly during the planning phase.
To drive his point home, he shared a real-world modelling example of a Pan-European network. He demonstrated how our newly introduced multi-layer planning tools—“Capacity Compass,” and other apps within Ciena’s Navigator Network Control Suite (Navigator NCS)—help customers determine what percentage of that sample network, which consisted of 60 routes, is best served by 400G pluggables, 800G pluggables, or a 1.6T embedded modem, all hosted in routers.
The best part? With this tool, our team completed the analysis in just one hour—something that used to take customers days, if not weeks! You can watch the full video of Raf’s talk here.
So, what’s the bottom line? Make sure you have the right tools to plan for a range of architectural scenarios to unlock value, not a one-size-fits-all approach. Without this foundation, once deployments scale to real-world figures, they might not keep up with expectations.
This realization is gaining traction in our industry, as one CSP noted in one of the Heavy Reading in-depth surveys.
One major (IP over DWDM) challenge is capacity planning. When we need additional capacity between two technical sites, we have to determine what modulation to use, and which pluggable modules will work best. Previously, this process was simple—we would contact the line system vendor, request a bill of materials, and send out a purchase order. Now, we have to make those calculations ourselves.
Now with Capacity Compass, they don’t have to make those calculations themselves!
Faster 800G+ routers and optics on display—live!
At OFC we had a different mission: to showcase the industry's very first 1.6Tb/s router, Ciena’s WaveRouter, along with our recently introduced 800GbE router, Ciena’s 8192—both featured in live demos at an event for the first time.
The industry has been talking about 800G technology for while, and it was inspiring to see this emerging ecosystem is vibrant and expanding. In fact, the 8192 played an integral role in the OIF multi-vendor testing, demonstrating its interoperability with eight pluggable hosts—a mix of 400ZR/ZR+, 800ZR, and 800G OpenROADM PCS—across two third-party line systems. You can see the OIF topology details and watch the 8192 in action here.
On the forecasting side, our survey report found that CSPs' interest in 800G pluggables and 800G-capable routers was among the top climbing stats.
Attendees also got a sneak peek at our flagship router, the WaveRouter, featuring its new WaveLogic 6 Extreme subslot module, transporting a beautifully formed 1.6Tbps channel.
With these additions, Ciena’s coherent routing is the only solution that integrates 400G, 800G, and 1.6T DWDM within a router, allowing you to cover even more applications—including submarine—with a converged design.
All-in-one multi-layer tool
We headed back to our Ottawa campus for our bi-annual Vectors event, which draws customers from all over the globe.
The mission? Build on the demo lineup from MPLS WC, spotlighting how far we’ve come in integrating our coherent routing solution with the Navigator NCS multi-layer provisioning, protection, and management workflows—all using one tool and streamlined processes.
Operational simplicity comes front and center, but we have also been demonstrating how our solution drives infrastructure ROI. Put simply, our toolset sweats the optical infrastructure assets to mine 'free capacity' for router links using Ciena’s Liquid Spectrum software.
Feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, and many customers left confident that they’re investing in a multi-generational technology partnership, not just a point product.
From demos to deals
Whether you look at survey findings or the vibrant industry ecosystem, one thing is clear: coherent routing is on the rise.
Our team is proud to be part of this momentum. We now have hundreds of Coherent Routing customers—and counting. Plus, we’ve recently published four new customer references. We are grateful for partnerships like this, where shared vision meets real execution.
To find out about this and more, visit Ciena’s solution page or connect with our team.
The next frontier of coherent routing is here—let’s build it together!