Verizon successfully completed its first field test of a 100 gigabit per second optical transmission on Friday, the company announced today, just days after trumpeting a 40 Gb/s deployment elsewhere.

The 100 Gb/s test took place over a 312-mile (504 kilometer) stretch between Miami and Tampa, Fla., transporting video feed from Verizon’s FiOS fiber-to-the-premises network. Verizon used Alcatel-Lucent’s 1625 LambdaXtreme Transport platform to send traffic at 100 Gb/s over a single wavelength.

“This trial proves what we’ve been saying: The move from 40 Gb/s -- available from Verizon Business today -- to 100 Gb/s will be exponentially quicker than the move from 10 Gb/s to 40 Gb/s,” Fred Briggs, executive vice president of network operations and technology for Verizon Business, said in a statement issued today. “As the industry moves toward 100 Gb/s, we’re leading the way.”

Just last week, Verizon announced having lit a 40-Gb/s link between Washington, D.C., and Chicago using core routers from Juniper Networks—three years after the carrier first began trialing 40 Gb/s technology and a few months later than it had hoped for earlier this year. In March, Verizon warned equipment vendors that 40-Gb/s technology would have a short life in the network if its cost-effectiveness were eclipsed by 100-Gb/s gear, which makes use of more widespread technology used in enterprise data centers.

In March, Verizon estimated it would begin trialing 100-Gb/s gear sometime before October 2008.

Verizon is still targeting late 2009 or early 2010 to debut commercial 100-Gb/s connections, a company spokesperson said today.

Though the company chose the location of last week's field test based on proximity to its video superheadend in Tampa, it will likely debut 100 Gb/s commercially somewhere else, where traffic levels are higher.