News and BusinessPortuguese operators Vodafone and NOS have signed a national infrastructure development and sharing agreement. The agreement covers the reciprocal sharing of dark fibre serving about 2.6 million houses, where each entity shares an equivalent amount of investment with the other. The partnership also extends to the mobile infrastructure, where it envisages at a minimum the […]
News and BusinessSubsea fibre optics solutions company Xtera has been awarded a US Department of Defense (DoD) contract to build a new regional submarine cable communication system in the Caribbean. The contract was placed by the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA), a DoD combat support agency that provides, operates, and assures command and control and information-sharing capabilities […]
News and BusinessFurukawa Electric Company has announced plans to nearly double its 2016 optical fibre manufacturing capacity by 2019, and also to increase its optical fibre cable manufacturing capacity. In the process it will create over 400 jobs over the next two years. Between 2014 and 2016, Furukawa Electric increased its global fibre production capacity by 20%, […]
News and BusinessItalian telco Wind Tre has extended its Fibre To The Home (FTTH) partnership with infrastructure provider Open Fiber. An existing agreement between the duo, which is already active in the first 13 Italian cities reached by Open Fiber’s fibre optics network, has now been extended to another 258 Italian cities (for a total of 271) […]
News and BusinessVodafone Germany is set to spend €2 billion over the next four years to upgrade and expand its fixed line fibre networks in a campaign it has dubbed the “Gigabit-Offensive”. The move marks an intensification of the operator’s broadband battle with Deutsche Telekom. To date, and perhaps understandably, the incumbent has seen copper uplift technology […]
News and BusinessOptical Internetworking Forum (OIF) members recently approved what the organisation says are important updates to the Micro Intradyne Coherent Receiver Implementation Agreement (IA). The new IA introduces three classes of receivers, distinguished by their RF frequency response, to support Flex Coherent DWDM transmission to 400 Gbits/s and beyond. The OIF says it continues its efforts […]
News and BusinessLIGENTEC, a Swiss provider of manufacturing foundry services in silicon nitride, and VLC Photonics, a Spanish design house offering photonic circuit development services, have collaborated to offer a generic platform for the prototyping and production of photonic integrated circuits. According to the company, LIGENTEC has matured a proprietary silicon nitride process that is able to […]
News and BusinessAccording to a recently published report from Dell’Oro Group, disaggregated WDM systems are hitting a sweet spot for Data Centre Interconnect (DCI). “Disaggregation isn’t a new concept, but the strong adoption is,” according to Jimmy Yu, Vice President at Dell’Oro Group. “We estimate that in 2Q17, disaggregated WDM systems reached an annualised run rate of […]
News and BusinessOptical switch specialist CALIENT Technologies has entered into an agreement with Suzhou Chunxing Precision Mechanical Co Ltd, whereby the Chinese enterprise will buy a controlling stake in the US company. The Chinese firm will also provide manufacturing services to help CALIENT scale its growth efforts. According to CALIENT, the company’s S-Series Optical Circuit Switches are […]
News and BusinessFrance’s biggest optical fibre Public-Private Partnership (PPP) contract to date, and one of the largest undertakings of its kind in Europe, has successfully reached financial close for private financing of €900 million. The Très Haut Débit (THD, Very High-speed Broadband) Est, project will connect approximately one million households and businesses across over 3,600 population centres. […]
News and BusinessJust released figures show Italian broadband operator Fastweb reaching 7.8 million households in 130 cities with its fibre services at the end of June 2017. The Fastweb ultra-broadband network is made up of both Fibre To The Cabinet (FTTC) and Fibre To The Home (FTTH) systems. Fastweb, which is 100% owned by Swisscom Italia, says […]
Technologies and ProductsFibre optic communications testing and networking platform specialist M2 Optics Inc has been awarded a patent (9,696,512) by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) for a specially designed fibre optic cable feedthrough. The purpose of the patented FT adapter is to allow a fibre optic cable to pass through a variety of panel […]
Applications and ResearchA group of Japanese enterprises has demonstrated what they say is the world’s largest transmission capacity – 118.5 Tbits/s – using a multicore fibre with four optical paths (cores) in the same diameter – 125 µm – as currently used optical fibre. The partners believe the achievement proves the concept of multicore fibre-based long-haul and […]
News and BusinessFollowing a ruling last month by the UK’s Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) that national regulator Ofcom had erred in an earlier attempt to oblige Openreach to further open up its dark fibre facilities to competitors, BT’s infrastructure organisation has now declared a moratorium on the launch of Dark Fibre Access (DFA). In a statement, Openreach […]
Technologies and ProductsApplied Optoelectronics Inc (AOI) has announced the successful development of 100 Gbits/s PIN photodiode (PD) arrays for high-speed optical receivers. According to the company, the InGaAs PIN PD is a front illuminated photodiode with a large modulation bandwidth, high responsivity, and low dark current. The product is a 4 x 25 Gbits/s PD array, and […]
Technologies and ProductsAmphenol Telect has unveiled a high-density fibre distribution chassis that it says boasts cable management features that will change the way networks connect. The C2LINX is aimed at hyperscale networks and is designed to maintain appropriate bend radius standards and protect fibre against possible snags, tension and attenuation. It supports 144 terminations in a one […]
Applications and ResearchA project underway at The University of New Mexico (UNM) is aimed at demonstrating that semiconductor laser devices can send data at a bandwidth speed of over 100 Gbits/s, with potential applications that could result in ten times the speed of current fibre optic networks. The project addresses the need for faster data transfer by […]
News and BusinessAccess to ultrafast broadband is now almost as important to new home buyers as running water and electricity. So says Rob Perrins, Chief Executive of UK property developer the Berkeley Group. Perrins reckons owners expect broadband to be available from the day they move in, and believes the company would risk losing buyers if new […]
News and BusinessAccording to “The Embedded Optics Market: COBO and its Alternatives – 2017-2026,” a new report from Communications Industry Researchers, the market value for embedded optics could reach $5.5 billion in 2022. The report notes that the standardisation efforts of the Consortium for on-Board Optics (COBO) group could make embedded optics technology much more popular in the […]
News and BusinessProfessional services giant Deloitte says the USA needs to invest between $130 billion and $150 billion in fibre infrastructure over the next five-to-seven years. This will be the price for unlocking the full commercial potential of 5G mobile networking, boosting high-speed service competition, and increasing rural broadband access in the country. According to a new […]