The 40G market embarks upon a 'golden age'

Posted on July 8, 2009 by Pauline

This article originally appeared on fibresystems.org.

The market for 40 Gbit/s optical transport equipment is growing strongly and looks set to enjoy a five-year period of deployment opportunity before the 100 Gbit/s market gets into full swing, according to industry analysts.

The latest figures from research firm Dell’Oro indicate that worldwide revenues for 40 Gbit/s equipment are expected grow at a combined annual growth rate of 35%, reaching a market size of $1.2 billion by 2013.

“While the overall worldwide optical market declined 20% sequentially and 11% year-over-year mainly due to the effects of the global economy, the 40G market has shown continued growth and strength with a 1Q09 increase of 8% sequentially and 400% year-over-year,” said Jimmy Yu, optical market analyst, Dell’Oro.

And about time too. Early 40 Gbit/s implementations first appeared in 1999, some 10 years ago, and the technology has been through four product generations. In contrast, 100 Gbit/s technology is enjoying significant operator and vendor interest even though it is still in its first generation.

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NSN, Juniper pick up the IPoDWDM baton

Posted on July 2, 2009 by Pauline

This article originally appeared on fibresystems.org.

WDM NICE, 2009 — Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) and Juniper Networks seem to be forging an ever closer relationship. Having recently joined forces to sell Carrier Ethernet equipment, the pair are now working together to integrate IP routing with WDM equipment — a concept called IP-over-DWDM or just IPoDWDM.

This development aligns Juniper’s strategy more closely with that of Cisco Systems, which originally introduced IPoDWDM about three and a half years ago.

Juniper is bringing IP router expertise to the party, while NSN is providing its optical transport solution, and operational systems for both technologies. The aim is “to enable seamless interworking between IP and optical networks to improve network efficiency and reduce operator opex”.

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Zero touch optical networks: a progress report

Posted on July 1, 2009 by Pauline

This article originally appeared on fibresystems.org.

WDM NICE 2009 — GMPLS and network automation were one of the key trends being discussed at IIR’s WDM & Next- Generation Optical Networking conference in Nice last week.

GMPLS emerged as a new control plane technology for optical networks almost 10 years ago, but it’s still a roadmap item for most ROADM vendors, according to Geoff Bennett, Infinera’s director of strategic marketing.

The ability to add new capacity quickly is often praised by Infinera’s customers, and to back up its point the vendor parked its GMPLS demo right outside the conference venue.

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Interview: Karel Helsen, FTTH Council Europe

Posted on June 10, 2009 by Pauline

This article originally appeared on fibresystems.org.

Karel Helsen

Karel Helsen is a busy man. Not only does he run the broadband communications business at fibre maker Draka, but he has just taken on a new job as the president of the FTTH Council Europe for the next two years. Hailing from Amsterdam, a city that’s often viewed as the showcase for fibre-to-the-home in Europe, Helsen appears to have the perfect credentials for the job. But what exactly does he have to do? Pauline Rigby finds out.

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From the show floor: CIP

Posted on March 25, 2009 by Pauline

This article originally appeared on the fibresystems.org blog.

If there’s one company I look forward to talking to, it’s the UK’s Centre for Integrated Photonics (CIP), because they always seem to have something interesting going on. At ECOC last September, CIP wowed attendees with its demonstration of a 32-channel multi-wavelength laser. The component contained two 16-channel laser arrays, with each channel being directly modulated.

This device is aimed at WDM-PON applications, where a single transmitter could replace 32 separate devices and a modulator, allowing all the optics at the PON headend to be collapsed down onto a single linecard. One of the benefits of GPON and EPON technologies is that they simplify fibre management and economize on equipment space in the central office; the multi-wavelength laser could bring both of those benefits to WDM-PON equipment.

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Amsterdam Citynet scores a home run for fibre

Posted on February 4, 2009 by Pauline

This article originally appeared in FibreSystems Europe magazine Dec 2008/Jan 2009 p16.

Amsterdam’s municipal fibre network has become a showcase for fibre-to-the-home in Europe. Pauline Rigby took a trip to the Dutch capital to see how the build out is progressing.

Amsterdam

In a secret location in an Amsterdam basement, the world’s largest POP (point of presence) has just been commissioned. With more than 13,000 individual fibres entering the site, and space for multiple service providers to install their broadband equipment, you might expect the POP to occupy a large physical area. In reality, the room is about the size of a classroom, and the 13,000 fibres are four bunches of cables that a person could almost encircle with their hands. It’s the modern equivalent of the old copper telephone exchange — but it takes up about one fifth of the space.

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Intel's silicon detector is a runaway success

Posted on December 8, 2008 by Pauline

This article originally appeared on fibresystem.org.

For some years now, Intel has been looking for a way to “siliconize” photonics. The chip giant wants to build optical devices on a silicon substrate to drive the manufacturing process to higher volumes and lower cost. Now the company says it has made a breakthrough in one of the key components that would be required — a silicon-based optical detector.

Intel has added germanium to silicon to create an avalanche photodiode (APD) that is better at detecting high-speed, low-intensity signals than existing devices. The results have been published in the journal Nature Photonics.

“This is the first time that a silicon photonics device has better performance than any recorded performance from an equivalent device in III-V materials, specifically indium phosphide,” claims Mario Paniccia, Intel fellow and director of the company’s photonics technology lab.

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100G backers divided on best approach

Posted on December 3, 2008 by Pauline

This article was originally published on fibresystems.org.

This summer the Optical Internetworking Forum (OIF) decided to forge ahead with the standardization of optical modules for 100 Gbit/s networking based on a modulation format called dual-polarization quadrature phase-shift keying (DP-QPSK).

DP-QPSK cuts the symbol rate on the fibre by a factor of four, by transmitting two bits of data per clock cycle on each of two polarizations. Thus a 100 Gbit/s data rate is reduced to a symbol rate of just 25 Gbaud on the fibre, which mitigates the impact of chromatic dispersion — an effect that causes high-speed pulses to spread out as they travel down the fibre.

“We have selected an implementation approach supported by a critical mass of photonic component vendors and users,” claimed David Stauffer of IBM, and the OIF’s PLL Working Group chair.

However, it seems that no sooner did the OIF give its blessing to DP-QPSK, than the dissenters started to crawl out of the woodwork.

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Draka, Bell Labs go ultra-long on 40G

Posted on September 24, 2008 by Pauline

This article originally appeared on fibresystems.org.

Although network operators are keen to deploy 40 Gbit/s wavelengths to upgrade their capacity on terrestrial routes, submarine cable systems have stayed at 10 Gbit/s because of the distances involved. But tomorrow in a post-deadline paper to be presented at the European Conference on Optical Communications (ECOC), researchers will describe an experiment that demonstrates the feasibility of transmitting 40 Gbit/s traffic over transoceanic distances.

The experiment involved sending 81 channels at 40 Gbit/s over a distance of 11,520 km — setting a new distance-capacity record.

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Vendors unite to develop next generation Ethernet

Posted on July 7, 2008 by Pauline

This article originally appeared in the July/August 2008 issue of FibreSystems Europe magazine.

John D’Ambrosia

The standardization of higher data rates is vital if Ethernet is to continue as a ubiquitous end-to-end protocol. Pauline Rigby finds out how standards are progressing.

Ethernet has traditionally evolved in multiples of 10, from the first successful commercial version of Ethernet at 10 Mbit/s through Fast Ethernet (100 Mbit/s), Gigabit Ethernet (1 Gbit/s) to 10 Gigabit Ethernet (10 Gbit/s) – the highest speed available today. But the next multiple — 100 Gigabit Ethernet (100 GbE) — hit a speed bump when disagreement arose between different interests within the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) Higher Speed Study Group (HSSG).

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