Optical networking took a major step forward on Nov. 9 when Lucent Technologies Inc., Murray Hill, N.J., introduced a truly optical cross-connect, the WaveStar LambdaRouter, which switches wavelengths of light in a dense wavelength-division multiplexing system (DWDM). The cross-connect is a 256-by-256 matrix that uses microscopic mirrors that change shape with heat to reflect the wavelengths in different directions.
Each mirror is less than a human hair in diameter, and the entire 256-by-256 matrix is less than an inch across, although input and output mechanisms will make the finished product much larger.
There is no foreseeable limit on the amount of bandwidth each mirror could switch, says Kathy Szelag, vice president of marketing for the Lucent Optical Networking Group. "It has 256 ports and conservatively could switch 40 gigabits per second (gbps) per port," she says. "So, if someone did terabit fiber, it could switch 256 terabits."
The matrix, however, has the flexibility to switch small or large data streams, as long as they are contained in wavelengths, or lambdas. It ostensibly could switch groups of lambdas on one mirror, says a report by market research firm Current Analysis, Sterling, Va. "There are no mechanical reasons why lambdas that have been grouped together cannot be simultaneously switched without having to be broken down individually. This would extend the capacity of the switching system, although it would require a more intelligent front-end muxing/demuxing system."
Lucent estimates the product will deliver 50 percent to 75 percent savings over intelligent optical systems using electrical cross-connects to switch wavelengths at network hubs.
Although Lucent positioned the product as a router, it will need several additional technologies to perform true router functions, says Chris Nicoll, network infrastructure analyst with Current Analysis. "The LambdaRouter takes an individual wavelength from one fiber and switches that signal to another fiber. Period," Nicoll says in a report on the announcement.
Besides the cross-connect matrix, the LambdaRouter needs an optical mux/demux to split out each of the wavelengths and aim them at the mirrors for switching. It also needs a technology to provide addressing and identification for each wavelength, as well as for prioritizing information for quality of service (QoS). Nicoll says that is likely to be accomplished with Lucent's WaveWrapper technology, unveiled in April 1999, which can carry information such as restoration signals, the type of traffic the wavelength is carrying and where it is headed.
Besides wrapper technology, the system will ultimately have to add some form of color conversion so a wave can move to a different frequency if the route to its destination already has a wave of the same color. If waves cannot change color, the system will be constrained in bandwidth. If it is necessary to convert wavelengths at some point, a system could also include an electrical cross-connect, which can change the frequency of waves.
However, the system's performance is potentially far superior to digital cross-connects, because they must use the processing power of chips to do switching, rather than just reflecting a wave off a mirror.
This becomes particularly acute as bandwidth ramps up, says Szelag. "If you do a digital cross-connect, it will never be able to switch at the speed of optical. But this year we reached speeds of 40 gigs (gigabytes)[in SONET muxes]. The state of the art today [in digital cross-connects] is 2.5 gigabits per second, and I heard rumors that some might come out with OC-192s (10gbps). But for OC-768, for sure optical is the only way to do it."
Further, according to a Current Analysis report, because the Lambda-Router is capable of only switching wavelengths and not multiplexing wavelengths, "networks will still need electro-optical switching systems that can take data from multiple wavelengths and mux that traffic onto a single wavelength. However, in a properly designed network, it is likely they will need fewer of these systems."
There are also unanswered questions about the product's resistance to vibration, shock and temperature change that can only be tested in actual use, Nicoll says. Products will be available for testing by mid-2000.
"We see terrific potential for the LambdaRouter if Lucent chooses to apply the WaveWrapper technology to the LambdaRouter," says Nicoll in the report. "If the intelligence to process the WaveWrapper information is added to the LambdaRouter, then the product would live up to its name and its potential."
Among the companies that could be negatively affected by the new product are digital cross-connect manufacturers. Nicoll adds that Current Analysis believes the WaveStar LambdaRouter will have "a high impact" on the optical networking equipment industry. An important con-sideration is Lucent's ability to bring the technology to market.
Two Views of DWDM Market Potential
U.S. DWDM Market Projections by End User | ||
| Market segment | 1999 | 2003 |
| DWDM Systems IXCs/ISP backbones | 330 | 3,376 |
| ILECs | 20.8 | 1,302 |
| CLECs | 51.5 | 58.1 |
| Cable TV | 80.5 | 909 |
| Enterprise | 56 | 168 |
| Optical Cross-Connects | 12.3 | 1,299 |
| TOTAL | 551.1 | 7,112.1 |
Source: Trans-Formations, Birmingham, Ala. | ||
Market Projections, DWDM | ||||||
| Market | 1999 | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 |
| IXC 32-channel and higher | 480 | 864 | 1074 | 1145 | 1189 | N/A |
| U.S. ILEC/IXC metro market | N/A | 85 | 135 | 195 | 290 | 415 |
Source: Communications Industry Researchers Inc., Charlottesville, Va. | ||||||
| Key: CLEC: competitive local exchange carrier DWDM: dense wavelength-division multiplexing ILEC: incumbent local exchange carrier ISP: Internet service provider IXC: interexchange carrier | ||||||
Lucent Aims at GigaChain
Lucent Technologies Inc., Murray Hill, N.J., has introduced a new lower-cost metro dense wavelength-division multiplexing (DWDM) product, called the WaveStar Metro Point OLS (optical line system). The point-to-point metro product offers only two speeds; 2.5 gigabits per second (gbps) (OC-48) and 10gbps (OC-192). It is limited to 16 waves, which can be added in increments of four via cards.
Lucent says the cost is half that of the company's flagship WaveStar All Metro products. The Metro Point system works with a multiplexing product aimed at the gigabit Ethernet market, the GigaChain. It multiplexes up to eight-gigabit Ethernet streams into one OC-192 multiplex that can be transported on one wave. At the top configuration of 16 waves, the system could transport 128-gigabit Ethernet streams.
In other company news, Lucent has added its first component product for the optical division, OptiGate Transceivers. The OptiGate products are lasers that can operate at speed of up to OC-192, transmitting and receiving. Lucent will sell the product to any vendor to be incorporated into equipment that interfaces to optical systems, such as adding an OC-192 port to a router.
Williams Takes Wave Router Plunge
By Charlotte Wolter
Williams Communications Inc., Tulsa, Okla., has signed a three-year agreement with Ciena Corp., Linthicum, Md., that will make it the first service provider to adopt Ciena's MultiWave CoreDirector intelligent optical network switch, and one of the first to put a wavelength router product in service.
CoreDirector is designed to be the basis of mesh or ring intelligent optical networks in which routers communicate with each other to optimize routes and provide service restoration. The CoreDirector uses an electrical cross-connect at network hubs to switch and provision wavelengths.
CoreDirectors communicate using the Ciena LightWorks OS (operating system), which uses the optical signaling and routing protocol to exchange information among the various CoreDirectors installed in a network. Each CoreDirector in a network is able to "see" the status of other CoreDirectors, evaluate the state of the network and select the best path across the network for traffic to reach its destination.
Williams is reportedly testing a 64-by-64 port matrix in a proprietary configuration of the CoreDirector, but the final product will have 256-by-256 port matrices in its hubs when it is available in the first quarter of 2000.
Williams has constructed a nationwide fiber optic network that currently spans 22,600 miles and will total 33,000 miles to 125 cities by the end of 2000. The network uses core asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) switching and is designed as a multiservice platform that will carry data, voice, video and Internet services.
SplitRock Expands Networks
By Charlotte Wolter
Emerging carrier SplitRock Services Inc., Houston, has announced a major network expansion employing advanced optical network products from Nortel Networks Inc., Richardson, Texas. SplitRock has been an Internet service provider (ISP) and is expanding to offer general telecom services.
SplitRock will use Nortels' advanced optical networking equipment to provide the capacity and flexibility needed to deliver additional network services such as bandwidth leasing and private line service. SplitRock plans to deploy Nortels' OPTera LH open optical equipment, which can carry Internet, data, multimedia and voice traffic in its native formats across long-haul networks. Nortels' OPTera portfolio maximizes capacity per fiber using dense wavelength-division multiplexing (DWDM) equipment and will be scalable as high as 1.6 terabits per second (tbps) on a single fiber.
The expansion will more than quadruple the capacity of SplitRock's nationwide broadband network and position the company to meet the growing demands for value-added services in the new Internet economy. SplitRock's buildout, which is already underway, is planned for completion in the first quarter of 2001.
The network is being built on 16,000 route miles of up to 16 dark fibers from Level 3 Communications Inc., Omaha, Neb.
SplitRock has a nationwide broadband access platform with asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) switches in hundreds of points of presence (PoPs). The company offers what it calls a "carry anything, anywhere" business strategy using this "ATM-to-the-Edge" access platform, which integrates data, video and voice traffic.
Dynarc Debuts New Optical Platform
By Charlotte Wolter
Putting its revolutionary ideas about optical technology into a product for service providers, Dynarc Inc., Sunnyvale, Calif., has introduced the Dynarc 500, a multiservice router/switch for backbone networks. The new product is based on a Dynarc technology for Internet protocol (IP) networks called dynamic synchronous transfer mode (DTM).
The Dynarc 500 includes switching, high-performance routing, and add-drop multiplexing (ADM) in a single platform. The switch allows service providers to integrate data, voice and video traffic at high speeds over the Internet, for services such as videoconferencing, voice over IP (VoIP) and multicast video.
Per Lembre, Dynarc product manager, says the system is efficient because the Dynarc technology operates only at Level 2, the transport level of a network stack, and doesn't touch traffic at Level 3, the IP level. "When we set up a channel between two routers on a ring, the other routers are bypassed. ... You don't have packet loss at the other routers because they don't touch the packets. [Our technology] is only at the second level."
DTM, as a technology, runs somewhat counter to the prevailing winds in networking today, which are blowing in the direction of packet-based networking technology. It is designed to transport IP data, but it does so in a way that gives much more control over quality of service (QoS) and, therefore, a greater ability to manage multimedia content effectively.
While packet technologies use information in a packet header to route packets to a destination, DTM uses the information in an IP packet header not only to route packets, but to set up a circuit based on time slots. The number of time slots for each circuit can increase or decrease dynamically, providing QoS. The technology is roughly analogous to ATM virtual circuits (VCs), except it establishes them with time slots rather than packets.
Airpower Communications Inc., Los Angeles, will be building the first nationwide broadband network based on DTM by Dynarc. Using DTM, Airpower plans to build a next-generation broadband wireless/fiber network that will have a robust 16 gigabits per second (gbps) fiber backbone.
With Dynarc's DTM-based switches, Airpower can quickly deploy a nationwide broadband network to deliver advanced services such as true multicast, VoIP, plain old telephone service (POTS) tunneling, virtual private networks (VPNs) and private networking.
"Everything is shifting to IP--that's the future. DTM technology enables IP to do QoS, bandwidth on demand, private networking, multicasting and everything else that everyone has always dreamed of, all in one box, at an unbeatable price. This stuff is incredible," says Ken Feldman, president of Airpower Communications.
Nortel Targets Market Unification
Nortel Networks Inc., Richardson, Texas, has announced the components that will make up its OPTera Packet Solution, a Nortel initiative designed to unify packet and optical networks.
The OPTera Packet Solution includes:
*The OPTera Packet Core that will be the cornerstone of the Packet Solution. The OPTera Packet Core is expected to be available for customer trials in the third quarter of 2000;
*The Versalar Switch Router 25000 is a carrier-class terabit switch router in customer trials and expected to be generally available in the fourth quarter of 1999;
*The OPTera Connect DX is an optical cross-connect that will be available for customer trials in the second quarter of 2000;
*The Passport 15000 Multiservice Switch is an asynchronous transfer mode (ATM)-based multiservice switch available now;
*The Integrated Network Management is end-to-end network management software available now.
Bandwidth on Internet backbones will double and the cost will be cut in half every six months for the foreseeable future, requiring that network vendors be prepared to offer products to meet this demand.
That is the premise behind OPTera Packet Solutions and the company's Optical Internet initiative, Nortel says. Because 50 percent of Internet downtime is related to router congestion, North American networks will have to scale to 1 terabit very soon, and to 3.2 terabits within a few years.
Ciena Biggest in Small Metro DWDM Pond
By Charlotte Wolter
The metro dense wavelength-division multiplexing (DWDM) market continues to languish, but Ciena Corp., Linthicum, Md., seems best positioned of all manufacturers to take advantage of whatever market develops in the incumbent local exchange carrier (ILEC) long distance carrier space, according to Mark Lutkowitz, president of research and consulting firm Trans-Formation Inc., Birmingham, Ala.
Lutkowitz says the explosion of bandwidth demand in the mid '90s set the stage for DWDM's success in the long haul. "Companies had been blindsided by the explosion in bandwidth demand, and I don't think Ciena's competition anticipated the explosion," he says. "But Ciena was there at the right time and able to take advantage."
However, the terribly slow movement toward this technology by such customers, especially the regional Bell operating companies (RBOCs), may allow other suppliers to take the lead. The U.S. ILEC long distance carrier metro DWDM market will only grow from about $85 million in 2000 to about $415 million in 2004, according to Trans-Formation projections.
Ciena's advantages include its perceived role as a leader in metro DWDM at these carriers; the company's focus on optical networking; no cross-competition at the supplier with other solutions such as synchronous optical network (SONET) or optical fiber; a record with metro DWDM deployment; enough size to ensure adequate manufacturing production; research and development funding; operations systems integration and modification of network elements (OSMINE) testing expenses; and the ability to offer a full turnkey system and network implementation.
Companies using metro DWDM at this time are the RBOCs and a few competitive LECs (CLECs), mainly for fiber exhaust. "But it remains to be seen when DWDM will go beyond fiber exhaust applications and to the true fiber network," Lutkowitz says.
COLT Gallops Ahead with Network Expansion
By Charlotte Wolter
In a move that dramatically ramps up the capacity of its European network, COLT Telecom Group plc, London, will connect its seven metro networks in Germany with a dense wavelength-division multiplexing (DWDM) backbone with 1.6 terabit capacity.
The 2,500-kilometer (km) backbone in Germany will link cities with key business and financial centers. The network will be extended 2,800km across Northern Europe.
COLT will use the OPTera 1600G DWDM platform by Nortel Networks Inc., Richardson, Texas, which will be available in April 2000. The 1600 platform will include tunable lasers for rapid replacement in case of outages.
COLT and Nortel have designed the network to deliver very high quality Internet access services aimed at businesses, using Nortel's Optical Internet initiative. The goal is to enable applications such as carrier-grade Internet protocol (IP) telephony and differentiated high-capacity data services, such as transparent local area network (LAN), between the key business and financial districts of Europe. COLT currently has operations in 13 European cities in eight countries, and plans to provide service in 24 to 26 cities by the end of 2000.
LuxN Debuts Local Optical System
By Charlotte Wolter
LuxN, Sunnyvale, Calif., an entrant in the new and rapidly developing optical access arena, has debuted the first three products in its LuxN WavSystem architecture.
The products are the WavPortal, a customer premises interface device that dramatically lowers the entry price for optical access; the WavFarer, a flexible multitenant, multiport optical access multiplexer; and the WavStation, a central office (CO) or point of presence (PoP) optical concentrator optimized for hub-and-spoke applications. Now in beta testing, products are expected to be available in the first quarter of 2000.
The LuxN solution provides a high-bandwidth pipe over either dark fiber or synchronous optical network (SONET), with interfaces for a wide range of protocols, such as direct modulation of Internet protocol (IP) on glass, within gigabit Ethernet virtual private networks (VPNs), fibre channel, storage-area networking and other ultra-high bandwidth applications. The WavStation, which supports up to 16 interface modules, can be cascaded to a total of 32 channels and has a total capacity of 80 gigabits per second (gbps). Customer premises equipment (CPE) can be provisioned remotely when customers wish to scale their service level.
Paul Strudwick, vice president of marketing, says LuxN takes advantage of the abundance of fiber in local networks, which can potentially reach 40,000 multisite businesses in the United States. Also, many of the new carriers entering the local market, such as application service providers (ASPs), Internet service exchanges and dark fiber companies, offer bandwidth-intensive services.
Strudwick says LuxN's technology gives carriers a way to get the maximum benefit of their dark fiber. Most of the intelligence is at the CO to keep CPE equipment as low-cost as possible.
Fifteen-month-old LuxN is funded by information technology (IT) venture partners New Enterprise Associates, Reston, Va., U.S. Venture Partners and Menlo Ventures, both of Menlo Park, Calif., in addition to corporate partnerships with Tokyo-based Mitsui and Mitsubishi; and Siemens AG, Munich, Germany.
News Briefs
General Datacom Industries Inc. (GDC), Middlebury, Conn., has partnered with Todd Communications Inc., Minneapolis, Minn., for a complete interactive video solution designed for the education, medical, corporate business and government markets. The platform supports interactive and streaming video for a variety of applications, from two-way video communications to content distribution. The GDC platform includes video compression at multiple rates for transmission via asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) or Internet protocol (IP) networks, storage and distribution via the GDC Multipoint Server and network management. The Todd TC Reliance software provides session scheduling, connection control, room and session control and administrative software.
An alliance of leading optical networking vendors has demonstrated an integrated transport management solution for optical networks that allows management of synchronous optical network (SONET) and synchronous digital hierarchy (SDH) equipment by multiple vendors from a single graphical interface. The members of the group include Fujitsu Network Communications Inc., Richardson, Texas; Lucent Technologies Inc., Murray Hill, N.J.; Nortel Networks Inc., Richardson, Texas; Siemens AG, Munich, Germany; Telcordia Technologies Inc., Morristown, N.J.; and Tellabs Inc., Lisle, Ill. The system works across the vendors' element management systems (EMSs) and network management systems (NMSs) to do end-to-end network provisioning and integrated fault management, as well as identifying alarms triggered by network problems.
In a move that underscores the growing commitment of Nokia, Espoo, Finland, to wireless technology, Marconi Communications, a subsidiary of General Electric Co. plc (GEC), U.K., has signed an agreement to purchase Nokia's SDH and dense wavelength-division multiplexing (DWDM) businesses for approximately $67 million. Nokia distributed its optical products under the brand name Synfonet and will continue to supply some of its ongoing customers under an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) agreement with Marconi. In the last year, Marconi also acquired Fore Systems, a leading ATM switch manufacturer, and has moved aggressively into optical technologies for access and core networks.
Lucent Technologies Inc. has announced a new server product line, the OptiStar family, that adds direct connections to optical networks to speed delivery of data in corporate and wide area networks (WANs). The OptiStar line replaces traditional electrical 45 megabit per second (mbps) DS-3 links to networks with OC-12 (622mbps) and OC-48 (2.5 gigabit per second [gbps]) optical IP network adapter cards and supporting software. In addition to increased speed, the new line cards provide integrated optical networking within the corporate networks and across the WAN, a configuration Lucent calls the optical area network (OAN). The new cards also enable servers to spend less time processing data in and out of a server and more time on applications.
NTL, Hook, Hampshire, U.K., has announced a $165 million contract with ECI Telecom Ltd., Petah Tekva, Israel, for SDH and DWDM solutions for its networks in the United Kingdom, which include telephone, cable TV, broadcast and interactive services.
Siemens AG has demonstrated transmission of 3.2 terabits per second (tbps) via one optical fiber. The demonstration used 80 DWDM channels each transmitting 40gbps, or OC-192 speed, along a 40 kilometer (km) fiber link.
Fujitsu Network Communications Inc. will supply e.spire Communications Inc., Annapolis Junction, Md., with DWDM equipment for its fiber optic network serving the New York metropolitan area. The network connects the Bronx, Brooklyn, western Long Island, Manhattan, Queens and Westchester County through a series of local fiber optic loops.
Intermedia Communications Inc., Tampa, Fla., will upgrade all 70 points of presence (PoPs) on its nationwide OC-48 IP optical backbone with Cisco Systems Inc., San Jose, Calif., 12000 gigabit switch routers and 7200 series VXR routers to increase scalability, port density and management capabilities. Intermedia also will add multiprotocol label switching (MPLS) capabilities to improve QoS features of the network.
Adelphia Business Solutions, a majority owned subsidiary of Adelphia Communica-tions Corp., Coudersport, Pa., is expanding its fiber optic network, which serves roughly the eastern half of the United States. Adelphia will add SONET equipment by Fujitsu Network Communications to link 22 of the cities it now serves, as well as 80 more it will be adding. Adelphia is using OC-3 SONET multiplexers from Fujitsu's FLM product line. The value of the contract is about $12 million. The Adelphia network stretches from the Canadian border to Miami, and as far west as Wichita, Kan. By the end of 2000, it will serve nearly 100 markets along 20,000 route miles.
Corvis Corp., Columbia, Md., which has developed an intelligent optical network system, says it has extended the interfaces to its product to support OC-192 and OC-192 concatenated systems. The increase allows networks based on the product to scale from multigigabit to multiterabit operation. The Corvis system allows carriers to support both native IP on DWDM systems and SONET multiplexes. The mesh architecture gives the rapid restoration of service associated with ATM networks.
ADVANCED Fibre Communications Inc., Petaluma, Calif., has announced two new packet-aware SONET/SDH products. The ONX1012 Optical Network Access System is a packet-aware SONET and SDH add/drop optical system that supports time-division multiplexing (TDM), packet and cell services. The OCX103 Optical Customer Access System is a packet-aware linear SONET/SDH multiplexer providing multiservice extension to remote business subscribers. Both products will be available during the first quarter of 2000.
BELL Labs, Murray Hill, N.J., the research and development arm of Lucent Technologies Inc., has introduced a technology demonstrating the transmission of 1.022 wavelengths on a single fiber, each carrying a distinct data stream. The technology uses a single laser--not multiple lasers, as in DWDM. DWDM wavelengths are usually separated by 50 gigahertz (GHz), but the 1,022-channel system operates with just 10GHz channel spacing. Bell Labs coined the term ultra-dense WDM (UDWDM) transmitter for the technology. Each channel today can transmit just 37mbps, for a total system capacity of more than 37gbps, but Bell scientists plan to scale the technology to OC-48s per channel.
