As the optical industry approaches the fundamental physical limits of optical transmission, researchers are exploring new ways to increase capacity by using multi-core fibre (MCF). Now NEC Corporation of America and Corning Inc. say they have set a new transmission record by sending data at 1.05 Pbps (1015 bits per second) over a novel optical […]
Nokia Siemens Networks has decided that optical networking isn’t central to its strategy after all. The troubled company has reached an agreement to sell its optical business to Marlin Equity Partners for an undisclosed sum. Last year Nokia Siemens said it would shed 17,000 jobs as part of drive to save €1 billion […]
UK incumbent BT has set up a demonstration of 10Gbps broadband at an engineering firm in Cornwall. Electronic component manufacturer Arcol got a broadband speed boost from 1.5Mbps to 330Mbps when it subscribed to BT’s FTTP service. It was then selected by BT to try out the 10Gbps connection. The 10Gbps connection is […]
Accelink Technologies has acquired the Danish planar lightwave circuit (PLC) company, Ignis Photonyx A/S. The Chinese optical component player has paid US$ 2.6 million (€2.0 million) for the company, which will become a wholly-owned subsidiary. Accelink has also agreed to spend US$ 5.4 million (€4.2 million) to upgrade facilities and contribute to the […]
ECI Telecom has announced a new family of packet transport platforms for the metro. The Native Packet Transport (NPT) platforms aims to reduce the cost of operating packet networks while supporting traditional TDM traffic. “Building carrier-grade packet transport is proving more costly than anticipated,” said Gil Epshtein, product market manager at ECI Telecom. […]
A new report by Dell’Oro Group says the total WDM market, comprising both metro and long-haul applications, is forecast to reach $8 billion for the full year 2012 – exceeding the telecom high point of 2000 for the first time. “It was the year 2000 when the WDM market peaked at $7.7 billion […]
One of the European Union’s most ambitious targets is to make sure that all its citizens can get access to superfast broadband at home by 2020. A new study by Point Topic shows that Europe is now halfway towards achieving that aim. The study has been produced for DG Connect, the department of […]
Cisco has announced new optical capabilities for its Cisco Routing System (CRS) family of core routers. This includes a programmable architecture that enables flexible provisioning of optical links carrying data rates of 100Gbps and above, as well as long-haul coherent 100G optical interfaces. The new technology, called nLight, provides information sharing between the […]
The optical industry loves a good debate about standards! The current generation of Ethernet standards was controversial, being the first where two standards – 40 and 100 Gigabit Ethernet – were developed simultaneously. The same debate about what the next generation of Ethernet should look like is now in full swing. In August, […]
Avago Technologies has unveiled its first family of active optical cables. The company has also developed an optical module for use in the active optical cables (AOCs). The new Atlas 75x optical engine reduces the power consumption and the cost, enabling the AOC to better compete with traditional direct-attach copper cables. The AOC […]
In recent months Cisco Systems has been talking about its upcoming proprietary 100G optical module, dubbed CPAK. The development is expected to reduce the market opportunity for the CFP2 multi-source agreement (MSA) and has caused disquiet in the industry. “The CFP2 has been a bit slow – the MSA has taken longer than […]
The NG-PON2 standard has yet to be finalised, but that hasn’t stopped ZTE Corp. unveiling what it claims is the world’s first standards compliant time- and wavelength-division multiplex passive optical network (TWDM-PON) prototype at Broadband World Forum 2012 (BBWF) in Amsterdam. The Full Service Access Network (FSAN) group reached consensus about what the […]
Infinera is claiming an industry first with the software-enablement of 100G capacity increments. The company has added features to its DTN-X platform that shortens the time to add new capacity in the network from weeks, as is common today, to less than a day.Infinera has developed a DWDM line card that features its […]
A new project being funded under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) aims to develop a new field-installable fibre-optic connector with performance comparable to factory pre-connectorized cables. The aim is to speed up the roll out of fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) networks across Europe. Going under the moniker “Versatile Easy installable Connector implementing new […]
MultiPhy has given early details of its 100Gbps coherent chip for metro networks, with samples expected in 2013. The company says it is seeing a market requirement for coherent technology’s deployment in the metro. “Everyone expects to see it [coherent metro] in the next two to three years,” said Avi Shabtai, CEO of […]
Oclaro and 3SPGroup, the former Alcatel Optronics, have established a new multi-source agreement (MSA) industry standard for pump laser packaging. The new MSA delivers a 70% reduction in size compared to legacy formats on the market. The current standard for pump laser packaging is based on a 14-pin format that has changed little […]
ZTE claims to have set a new world record for 400G high-speed optical transmission based on single-carrier DWDM. The Chinese vendor presented a paper about its work at ECOC in Amsterdam. In the experiment, ZTE successfully transmitted 40 channels, each carrying 400Gbps, over 2800km of standard singlemode fibre arranged in 35 spans, with […]
Team members of MODE-GAP, an European collaborative R&D project that is part of the EU 7th Framework Programme on next-generation internet infrastructure, presented no fewer than three post-deadline papers at the ECOC 2012 conference in Amsterdam. Now half-way through its four year programme, the MODE-GAP project is exploring ways to increase the capacity […]
NeoPhotonics has announced a multiport mode coupling receiver (MCR) transceiver that enables operators to boost the efficiency of their fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) networks by connecting up to four times as many homes to each existing OLT slot in a central office. One common approach to reduce the cost of FTTH installation is to keep […]
Teraxion has adopted silicon photonics technology for its latest compact 40- and 100-Gbps coherent receivers. The Canadian optical component company, better known for its fibre Bragg gratings and tunable dispersion compensation products, has spent the last three years developing expertise in silicon photonics. At the recent ECOC exhibition it announced its first products based […]