WDM

NSN: VDSL2 rivals GPON

Dan O'Shea — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 22:40:42 -0400

Nokia Siemens Networks decided to exit the market for gigabit-passive optical network fiber-to-the-home architectures earlier this year, so it may not come as a surprise that the company is claiming VDSL2 can deliver 100 Mbps, and that GPON will be an outdated technology within the next four to five years. NSN CTO Stephan Scholz made the comments at the Broadband World Forum Europe.

NSN seems to believe that VDSL2 not only can match GPON in the current market, but also that wave division multiplexing-passive optical networking probably will supercede GPON in a few years. Though GPON has been successful in the U.S. in particular, WDM-PON developments have indeed been picking up steam of late.

For more:
- see this coverage at Light Reading Europe

ADVA announces WDM-PON platform

Dan O'Shea — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 09:41:27 -0400

ADVA Optical Networking is announcing at the Broadband World Forum in Brussels this week its entry into the WDM-PON market with a new platform called Unifier that will be available early next year. That time frame puts availability of the system ahead of some planned products by other vendors, and also possibly well ahead of broad carrier deployment.

The new platform includes a Flexible Remote Node (FRN) deployed near the customer, and an active Ethernet element or passive optical element at the customer demarcation point. Light Reading Europe reports that this demarcation device, "would be integrated into a network element as close to the end user as possible: It could be housed in a multi-service access node (MSAN), an Ethernet switch, a VDSL2 multiplexer, or in the case of large business users, into an ONT (optical network termination) unit."

WDM-PON has been picking up steam in recent months, and there are likely to be several more product announcements before the year is done. In jumping out a bit ahead of others in the market, ADVA may look to persuade carriers to make earlier commitments to WDM-PON than many industry observers assumed they would make. The vendor likely will argue that while WDM-PON requires more up-front expense right now, it promises better long-term operational economics than other architectures.

For more:
- see this coverage at Light Reading Europe

WDM gear sales finally move ahead of SONET

Dan O'Shea — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 15:27:32 -0400

About 12 years ago this spring, as the industry was talking about the big news of from the U.S. telecom industry's biggest trade show (Supercomm 1996), a lot of it had to do with wavelength division multiplexing technology. WDM was the next big thing in network transport technology, and looked to be the sure successor to synchronous optical networking (SONET) technology. The only question (well, maybe one of very few questions) about WDM's bright future was, how long before it over-takes SONET in telco networks? Considering the lengthy lifetimes that telcos squeezed out of their gear, it was a very good question.

We still do not have a direct answer to that question, but what we do know, thanks to a recent Dell'Oro Group study, is that sales of WDM gear just moved ahead of sales of SONET gear for the very first time. So, if you had 1998 in the WDM-beats-SONET pool, you were way wrong ...

For more:
- check out this press release from Dell'Oro

Related articles:
Verizon eyes evolution to WDM-PON FierceIPTV report
Here's a bunch more WDM news: WDM report

Enablence buys Wave7 in vertical cost move

Wed, 16 Apr 2008 06:59:54 -0400

Optical components vendor Enablence Technologies is acquiring access equipment vendor Wave7 Optics for about $14 million. Components are usually pretty self-contained and rarely see the need to match themselves up with vendors of full platforms, but Enablence believes it can lower Wave7's total cost by using its own optical transceivers in Wave7's gear. Such components are some of the highest cost contributors to optical access platforms, but will owning Wave7 cause a rift between Enablence and its other components customers who presumably will not be getting the family discount?

For more:
- check out this coverage at Telephony

Related articles:
Enablence grows cash and investments in Q3. Enablence earnings report
Enablence: FTTH market growth sound. Enablence FTTH report

Xtera acquires Meriton in optical match

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 06:59:55 -0400

WDM and long-haul optical vendor Xtera Communications has acquired metro optical vendor Meriton Networks in a deal which on the surface appears to be the latest step in optical vendor consolidation. However, Light Reading also points out that Meriton last year had begun developing its own take on ultra-hot provider backbone transport technology, so perhaps PBT and strategic timing played their parts as well.

Meriton had been around for eight years and was first called Edgeflow. Later, the company made news with the acquisition of Mahi Networks 2005, and also as a rumored acquisition target itself for some time before the Xtera deal happened. Xtera, based in the Dallas area, reportedly already has laid off 35 of Canadian firm Meriton's employees. Meriton CEO Mike Gascoe also will not be joining Xtera.

For more:
- read the scoop from Saturday's Ottawa Citizen
- see this follow-up at Light Reading

ECI launches new carrier Ethernet platform

Tue, 18 Mar 2008 07:59:53 -0400

ECI Telecom announced an IP MPLS carrier Ethernet platform featuring core and customer premises gear. The 9700 platform also features wavelength division multiplexing optics integrated into the core router, an approach similar to the IP-over-DWDM architecture touted previously by Cisco Systems, according to a story at Telephony. Notably, the platform does not support provider backbone transport, showing that even as PBT gains attention and spawns its own new market segments, not everyone is a believer, at least not yet.

For more:
- read this report at Telephony

Related article:
- The market for PBT control planes has been heating up lately

Ciena to buy WWP in Ethernet binge

Wed, 23 Jan 2008 06:59:57 -0500

Optical network equipment vendor Ciena Corp announced the acquisition of Ethernet technology firm World Wide Packets for about $290 million in cash and stock. The deal continues Ciena's impressive move into the converged Ethernet sector, and comes with WWP's recently-announced deal to supply AT&T with Ethernet gear.

Some analysts criticized Ciena for possibly paying too much --the purchase price increases to $305 million when you add WWP's debt-- and the vendor has revenue of only about $30 million. But, at a time when carriers like AT&T and BT are moving to bring Ethernet into their networks, owning your own products and experienced Ethernet sales team certainly provides an edge against traditional transport gear competitors.

For more:
- read this story in Light Reading

Related articles:
- Ciena recently landed an Ethernet deal with BT

Zhone sells two product lines to refine focus

Wed, 23 Jan 2008 06:59:56 -0500

Zhone Technologies has divested two product lines in an effort to focus on IP access segments, including Ethernet in the First Mile (EFM) and Gigabit Passive Optical Networks (GPON). Zhone sold the GigaMux wavelength division multiplexing product line back to its original owner, Sorrento Networks. Sorrento was acquired by Zhone in 2004, but the company's founders are now restarting the firm independently with this acquisition. Meanwhile, Zhone sold its AccessNode product line to Communications Test Design, Inc., a company which, among other pursuits, is strongly focused on repair and customer support for legacy network equipment still deployed in the field.

For more:
- see this press release at The Centre Daily Times

Alca-Lu doubts WDM-PON

Tue, 02 Oct 2007 06:59:53 -0400

The Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) Conference, run by the FTTH Council, is always a popular venue for debating the future of fiber technologies and architectures. At the show this week in Orlando,Fla., Alcatel-Lucent discussed possible successors to current gigabit passive optical networking (GPON) structures, including wave division multiplexing-PON (WDM-PON).

However, despite some adoption of WDM-PON already overseas, the company said it's probably too early to think about WDM-PON, and that this option is still too expensive. Instead, a hybrid of next-gen GPON and WDM-PON may be in order. WDM-PON excitement had been building, so stay tuned to see if the budding market takes a hit.

For more:
- See this conference report in Telephony