Australian incumbent Telstra has successfully tested out 1Tbps optical transmission on a 995km link between Sydney and Melbourne using equipment from Ericsson. Ericsson said the test showed that 1Tbps technology can be deployed in a real network environment. Last month, Ericsson announced at Mobile World Congress that it had signed a deal to […]
Oclaro has unveiled an add/drop routing platform aimed at next-generation colourless, directionless, contentionless (CDC) and flexible grid ROADMs. The platform can be tailored to a system vendor’s requirements and includes such functions as crossconnect switching, arrayed amplifiers and optical channel monitors. After working with system vendors on various line card designs, Oclaro realised […]
The first CFP2 transceivers for singlemode and multimode client-side applications in optical networks have arrived. Cisco Systems has also demonstrated the CPAK, its own transceiver alternative to the CFP2. The announcements were made at the recent OFC/NFOEC exhibition held in Anaheim, California. The CFP2 is the next pluggable form factor after the CFP and is […]
Avago Technologies has announced a definitive agreement to acquire optical component player CyOptics. The value of the acquisition, at $400 million (€304 million), is double CyOptics’ revenues in 2012. CyOptics’ sales were $210 million (€160 million) last year, up 21 percent from the previous year. Avago’s acquisition will make it the optical component […]
The market for metro packet-optical transport systems (P-OTS) is entering a new phase with platforms adopting packet-only implementations, Optical Transport Network (OTN) switching and 100G transport. These are the main findings of a survey of over 100 operators conducted by market research firm Heavy Reading. One surprise from the survey is the tremendous […]
Fujitsu Laboratories Ltd. and Fujitsu Research and Development Center Co., Ltd. of China have been working on an optical technology that can achieve 100Gbps transmission speeds using commercial components intended for 10Gbps networking. The modulation technique they have adopted is Discrete Multi-Tone (DMT), which is widely used in DSL equipment but is not usually applied […]
2012 was a very important year for fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) adoption in Europe, according to IDATE, the analyst firm that compiles the FTTH Market Panorama for the FTTH Council Europe. About 35% of subscribers in the European region, including Russia and its neighbours, were new subscribers during the year. “Fibre to the home is starting to […]
A slew of optical transceiver announcements are expected in the coming days to coincide with the upcoming OFC/NFOEC conference and exhibition. The first CFP2 products – the CFP MSA’s 40G and 100G optical transceiver form factor that follows on from the CFP – are expected, as is further news of Cisco Systems’ own in-house CPAK […]
Semiconductor specialist GigOptix, Inc. has partnered with the Fraunhofer Heinrich-Hertz Institute (HHI) in Germany to develop a volume production process for 100Gbps pluggable CFP and CFP2 optical transceiver modules based on polymer technology. CFP modules support high-speed telecom applications such as coherent 100Gbps optical transmission. “This partnership combines the best 100-Gbps polymer technologies […]
Swiss company Huber+Suhner AG says its new LC-XD fibre-optic connector will double the density of optical fibres per rack while also making it easier to manipulate fibres in central offices and data centres. Launched at the FTTH Conference 2013 in London, the new connector is designed to reduce space requirements, control costs and improve operational […]
Silicon photonics start-up Skorpios Technologies is getting close to delivering its first product: a full C-band tunable laser manufactured in a commercial semiconductor foundry. The new device is based on the Skorpios Template Assisted Bonding (STAB) process, which involves bonding a III-V crystalline layer to a CMOS wafer. The laser is fabricated in […]
Start-up Compass-EOS has announced availability of an IP core router based on an electronic chip with a terabit-plus optical interface. Having an optical interface directly to the silicon – which includes a merchant network processor – simplifies the system design and enables the router to incorporate such features as real output queuing, the […]
Fabless semiconductor company Netronome has demonstrated a flow processor chip implementing the OpenFlow protocol, an open standard implementation for software-defined networking (SDN). Operators and content service providers view SDN as a way to address changing traffic requirements in the data centre and the network. With SDN, operators can add their own intelligence to […]
France Telecom-Orange and Alcatel-Lucent claim to have deployed “the world’s first optical link with a capacity of 400 Gbps per wavelength” on a live fibre-optic link between Paris and Lyon. This connection represents an important milestone for long-distance terrestrial network technology, the companies say. The 400G wavelength increases overall capacity increased by a […]
Investing in broadband infrastructure is not a priority for Europe, judging by recent developments at the European Commission. The Commission had planned to invest €9.2 billion in broadband and digital services, but budget cuts have reduced that amount to just €1 billion. The money was part of the “Connecting Europe Facility”, which had […]
Huawei has introduced a new access network architecture that it says will overcome the installation difficulties in traditional fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) or fibre-to-the-building (FTTB) scenarios. The Chinese vendor has introduced what it calls fibre-to-the-door (FTTD), which provides broadband at speeds up to 1 Gbps by reusing existing twisted-pair or coaxial cables in the final drop. […]
Silica microwires, if they could be manufactured or self-assembled in place, have the potential to operate as tiny optical interconnects, says a team of researchers from Australia and France. By carefully controlling the shape of water droplets with an ultraviolet laser, the researchers have found a way to encourage silica nanoparticles to self-assemble into uniform […]
The Optical Internetworking Forum (OIF) Physical and Link Layer Working Group has started work on a module interface implementation agreement for 400-Gbps long-haul transmission. Meanwhile, the OIF’s Carrier Working Group is being tasked with determining how software-defined networking (SDN) will impact the transport network. “There is nothing in the standards market today to use as […]
Alcatel-Lucent’s research arm, Bell Labs, has used high-speed electronics to enable Terabit long-haul transmission using two optical carriers only. Several vendors have already demonstrated Terabit transmission including Alcatel-Lucent, but the company is claiming an industry first in using two multiplexed carriers only. “There is a tradeoff between the speed of electronics and the number […]
The Dell’Oro Group forecasts that the global optical transport market will grow to $13 billion (€9.6 billion) in 2017, equating to a 10-percent compound annual growth rate (CAGR). In 2012 SONET/SDH sales declined by over 20 percent, greater than Dell’Oro expected, while WDM equipment sales held their own. Dell’Oro expects optical transport growth across […]