AT&T reports it has trials of 400 Gigabit Ethernet data speeds for businesses in the works for 2017.

“Although there have been efforts focused on 400 Gigabit Ethernet viability and industry standards over the past couple of years, we are excited to be the first to implement a pilot,” Rick Hubbard, SVP, AT&T network product management, says. “400 GbE has the potential to transform how our largest retail and wholesale customers manage their networks today.”

The company says it is looking to be the first in the industry to demonstrate a 400 GbE service across its production network. Benefits to business customers reportedly would include faster uploads and downloads, the ability to transport very large amounts of data at record speeds, more bandwidth and faster video streaming on the AT&T network.

The testing is slated for three phases, with the first using optical gear from Coriant to carry a 400 GbE service across a long-distance span of AT&T backbone from New York to Washington. Phase 2 reportedly will reportedly trial a 400 GbE on a single 400 G wavelength across AT&T’s OpenROADM metro network using Ciena optical gear. The final phase is slated to test the first instance of a 400 GbE open router platform, and the “disaggregated router” platform uses merchant silicon and open source software, which AT&T reports as another industry first.