Both Verizon and Level 3 say they need 100 Gigabit optical networks, and the sooner, the better.
Speaking at Optical Expo 2008 in Dallas, Verizon's backbone network design director said the company is currently meeting traffic needs with multiple 10G wavelengths, but managing multiple wavelengths across fiber is a pain; Level 3 is in the same boat.
At the conference Verizon announced the results of a 100G trial with Nortel; Verizon also has run 100G trials with Nokia Siemens Networks and Alcatel-Lucent. Bringing up 100G would pull costs out of the network (simplified management, more capacity on existing fiber), a benefit that works across the board from enterprise metro Ethernet services to Verizon's FiOS fiber-to-the-home network.
Nortel's optical gear comes out strong in the Verizon announcement. Nortel's optical gear performed with better tolerance for signal distortion than what's typically found in today's standard 10G wavelengths. Tests were run over 73 kilometers of field fiber in Texas at 92 Gbps, so no special fiber or "extensive" re-engineering is necessary for faster speeds.
For more:
- Light Reading reports on 100G lust at Optical Expo 2008.
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