M/A-COM Technology (MACOM) is getting deeper into the optical components market with the acquisition of BinOptics, a supplier of high-performance lasers for telecom and datacom applications, in an all-cash transaction valued at $230 million (€185 million). MACOM believes it has spotted a gap in the market that developed over the last few years. […]
Koch Industries, Inc. has reached an agreement to acquire optical components and subsystems provider Oplink Communications, Inc. for approximately $445 million (€358 million). Koch, via its wholly owned subsidiary Koch Optics, has offered $24.25 per share for all of Oplink’s outstanding shares, which represents a 26% premium on the recent share price. Assuming […]
Seven cores are better than one, according to researchers at Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) in the Netherlands and the University of Central Florida (CREOL) in the US. The researchers report in the journal Nature Photonics the successful transmission 255 Tbps over a new type of optical fibre containing seven cores through which light can […]
The European Commission has given the green light to the €450 million joint venture between Vodafone and Irish power utility company ESB to roll out fibre-to-the-home with speeds up to 1 Gbps. Just a week later, Irish incumbent eircom responded by saying that it would increase broadband speeds on its fibre broadband network […]
At Broadband World Forum in Amsterdam, Alcatel-Lucent launched what it claims is the industry’s first TWDM-PON (time- and wavelength-division multiplexed passive optical network) system. The product, which is expected to be available in the first quarter of 2015, comes in the shape of a new 4-port TWDM-PON line card and optical network unit […]
Chinese vendor Huawei Technologies is trying to steal a march on its optical access infrastructure rivals. Shortly after the first commercial 40G time and wavelength division multiplexed PON (TWDM-PON) product was unveiled, Huawei Technologies said it had gone one better, by creating a prototype 100G-PON optical access system. Like the 40G system, Huawei’s […]
The Internet2 community, which includes research and education institutions across the United States, has launched a network virtualisation capability on its national backbone network, enabled by software defined networking (SDN). Virtualization makes it possible to subdivide a network, allowing it to operate as multiple discrete, private networks. Virtualized networks allow multiple applications to […]
Swiss connectivity specialist Huber+Suhner has acquired the German optical components and subsystems vendor Cube Optics AG. The parties have agreed not to disclose the sales price, but did note that the purchase is to be financed entirely from company funds. Cube Optics develops, produces and sells wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) components and subsystems based […]
Optical subsystem and transceiver developer Kaiam Corp. says it has closed a $35 million (€27.6 million) round of new equity investment. This nearly doubles the total investment in the company to date. The company will use its newfound wealth to ramp production of products based on its hybrid photonic integration platform, and for […]
At the ECOC Exhibition in Cannes, France, Finisar held what it claims is the industry’s first demonstration of a 50-Gbps optical interface using silicon photonics technology. In the demo, Finisar showed both 40G and 50G NRZ-based transmission on a single wavelength over 12km of singlemode fibre. The CFP4 form factor transceivers were based […]
Alcatel-Lucent says its new single-carrier 100G/200G DWDM optical line card has already been deployed in more than 20 service provider networks. The single-wavelength capability is an industry first at these data rates, the vendor claims. The card plugs in to Alcatel-Lucent’s 1830 Photonic Service Switch (PSS) platform to give service providers a way […]
BT says it is “greatly encouraged” by field trials which show combined downstream and upstream speeds of up to one gigabit can be delivered via a mix of copper and fibre. The UK operator has been checking out the potential of G.fast technology. When deployed in combination with fibre-to-the-distribution-point (FTTdp), G.fast could provide […]
Service providers expect 100G WDM to account for almost 40% of all metro wavelength deployments and 75% of the core network in 2017, according to the latest survey from Infonetics Research. “100G is growing so fast because it’s kicking out 10G,” said Andrew Schmitt, principal analyst for carrier transport networking at Infonetics Research, […]
Optical transport vendor Infinera has unveiled Cloud Xpress, a metro-focused optical platform based on its photonic integrated circuit. The Cloud Xpress is optimized for the metro cloud, the transport network that interconnects multiple data centres within a metropolitan area. This move will enable Infinera to go after the Internet content providers, who are […]
Fabless semiconductor start-up Terasquare has unveiled a chip that it claims could drastically increase port density on line cards and thus save equipment space inside data centres. The so-called reverse gearbox IC is the industry’s first chip to meet the OIF Multi-Link Gearbox (MLG) 2.0 standard, according to Terasquare’s CEO Jinho Park. The chip’s job […]
UK infrastructure provider CityFibre Ltd. says it is joining forces with Scottish service provider Internet for Business (IFB) to bring optical fibre connections to businesses in Aberdeen, thus creating Scotland’s first Gigabit City. CityFibre said it has selected Aberdeen as “a highly attractive and strategically significant market” based on its strong local economy […]
European R&D project MODE-GAP says it has been officially recognised by the Guinness Book of Records for achieving the highest data transmission rate over hollow-core optical fibre. The researchers successfully transmitted data at 57.6Tbps, a gross rate of 73.7Tbps including error correction overheads, over hollow-core optical fibre – a fifty-fold increase compared to […]
Fujitsu, NTT Communications, and NEC Corp. claim they have made significant progress towards commercialization of 400G optical transmission. Under research funded by the Japanese government, the companies have successfully tested 400-Gbps coherent transmission over distances up to 10,000 km. Up to 62 x 400G channels were wavelength division multiplexed to achieve total transmission […]
While discussing its first quarter 2015 financial performance, Finisar revealed that it had completed the acquisition of Eugene, Oregon-based gratings manufacturer LightSmyth Technologies during the quarter. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Founded in June 2000, LightSmyth uses holographic principles and state-of-the-art semiconductor patterning tools to produce high-quality optical gratings for a […]
Infinera and DANTE (Delivery of Advanced Network Technology to Europe), which operates the European GÉANT research and education network, report that they have successfully demonstrated terabit superchannel transmission using a single line card. The demonstration took place over an active segment of GÉANT’s network between Budapest, Hungary and Bratislava, Slovak Republic. Infinera’s existing […]