Joining the march toward ultra-high-speed Ethernet transport services, New York-area operator Optimum Lightpath, a subsidiary of Cablevision Systems Corp., said today it is now offering 40-Gpbs optical transport to its customers. Long viewed as the next important step in optical data transport, 40-Gig Ethernet services are now being offered by an increasing number of providers in urban areas around the U.S.
Optimum Lightpath serves mostly medium-sized and large businesses throughout the greater New York City region. Offered on a flat-rate pricing basis across its service area, the new 40-Gig service is especially well suited for Optimum’s “cutting-edge customers,” including financial institutions, said Chris Rabii, senior vice president of technical operations.
Despite the hype around 40-Gig deployments, “I do think that 40-Gig is still somewhat immature as a market,” Rabii added. “The spread of that technology to all parts of the telecom world really needs to happen right before it can take off.”
At the core of its fiber-optic network, Optimum Lightpath uses the 7100 series optical transport system from Tellabs. While vendors such as Alcatel-Lucent have recently come out with optical switches that merge packet and optical transport at the lowest possible layer of the network, Rabii said that for now Optimum is sticking with a more traditional IP packet-routing architecture.
“Packet optical certainly offers a lot of compelling advantages, especially for service providers looking to deliver multiple services on a common platform, as we are,” Rabii explained. “We certainly have an interest in doing that, but for now we’re taking a wait and see approach while that technology matures.”
Optimum Lightpath says it has the most pervasive fiber network in the New York metro area, with more than 3,700 route miles connecting more than 3,500 buildings.
