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** Cisco Systems Inc., which has already taken minority stakes in Corvis competitors Monterey Networks Inc. and
Optical Networks Corp., revealed at Supercomm that it has also joined the latest round of venture funding for
Corvis. ***
Corvis demos optical network elements at Supercomm
By Loring Wirbel
EE Times
(06/09/99, 5:16 p.m. EDT)
COLUMBIA, Md. — Corvis Corp., the latest startup to plumb the realms of active optical elements in
broadband networks, said at Supercomm that it is the first company to perform true optical switching without
optoelectronic conversions in the wavelength routing process. While prototypes of several network elements
were on the floor of the show, Corvis president David Huber was not ready to disclose whether Corvis used
lithium-niobate switches, semiconductor circuits, micromechanical devices, or some other method to switch
wavelengths.
"The trick is less of a component issue than a network issue," said vice president of marketing and sales Moise
Augis, without elaboration. The Corvis team can claim a good amount of expertise in developing its CorWave
network. Huber was a founder of wave-division multiplexing specialist Ciena Corp.; vice president of
manufacturing Terence Unter managed optics manufacturing operations at both AMP Inc. and Alcatel Optronics;
and chief architect Adel Saleh worked at Bell Labs and AT&T Labs, and was a key initiator of the federal
government's Project Monet (multiwavelength optical networks).
Key to the network at Corvis is the Optical Amplifier 3200 system, which allows optical transmission out to
3200 km without regeneration. The full family includes an Optical Network Gateway 160, serving as an ingress
to Corvis's long-haul optical mesh; the Corvis Optical Router 2400, with a capacity to handle native Internet
Protocol or ATM traffic at up to 2.4 terabits/second; and the Corvis Optical Add/Drop Multiplexer 160, which
can take the place of Sonet-layer ADM functions in the network.
The system can perform optical route provisioning as well as protection-switching and path-restoration functions,
but it can also coexist with existing Sonet protection or restoration functions. The company has developed a full
suite of management tools called CorManager, which includes a basic element manager, and special optical
broadband provisioning tools such as a wavelength planner.
Cisco Systems Inc., which has already taken minority stakes in Corvis competitors Monterey Networks Inc. and
Optical Networks Corp., revealed at Supercomm that it has also joined the latest round of venture funding for
Corvis.
eet.com
John |
