A.Edwards...from June issue of Telecom Magazine
Tellabs Bounces Back with Metro DWDM Platform
LISLE, Ill.--A year ago, Tellabs CEO Michael Birck announced a multibillion dollar merger with Ciena Corp., citing that while his company was working on a dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) platform, he didn't think it could get one to market quickly enough. When the merger fell through several weeks later, there was speculation that Tellabs itself would need to be acquired to stay afloat. But the networking company, which supplies cross connects to just about every major telco, has responded with its own DWDM solution--one that is drawing praise from analysts and interest from small and large service providers alike. The company, which had nearly $1.7 billion in revenue in 1998 and posted a record first quarter with $470 million in sales, has now set its sights on becoming a $6-billion company by 2003.
While the target with Ciena was quick entry into the escalating long-haul DWDM market in North America and Europe, Tellabs has focused its new product, the Titan 6100 Optical Transport System, on the metropolitan area market. “The metro market is less mature than the long-haul space and that has worked in our favor in terms of bringing a product to market,” said Rob Pullen, vice president of development and marketing for the Digital Systems Division at Tellabs. “There were only six to eight weeks with the Ciena merger when our own internal DWDM product development was out of sight. It was never out of mind, though.”
According to analysts, there are a few things that set Tellabs' offering apart. One is its flexibility in addressing--in a single platform--end-to-end lightpath management for both mesh and ring network configurations and an evolution path for point-to-point networks to ring and mesh networks. “We're going to manage lightpaths like SONET and T1s are managed today,” Pullen said. A second standout feature is the all-optical pass-through of traffic that does not need to be terminated locally. For example, traffic traveling from Point A to Point C is not converted at Point B. Because there is no optical-electrical-optical conversion in the path, this type of system is considered to be more reliable. Many current systems require use of back-to-back terminals linked by transponders to deliver the same mesh pass-through capabilities. “Here is a way to not demux a signal when it reaches a point, but rather to have it pass through,” said Robert Rosenberg, president of Insight Research Corp. “Tellabs is not unique in that, because I believe Lucent has that capability as well, but they seem to be doing it effectively and very cost efficiently. They also have a number of different products that this platform maps well to--including the 4500 series for T1/E1 and T3/E3.”
Mat Steinberg, director of optical networking at RHK, said the 6100 fits into Tellabs' core strength: the local market. “They have a real understanding of what their customers' traffic patterns are like, and they are playing right into that with a metro product,” Steinberg said. “The 6100 will be tied very closely to the 5500, and the fact that they can integrate network management into the equation is a huge deal.”
The 6100 product is the first in a planned Titan 6000 family of products for optical networking. The platform for metro networks can be modified for long-haul use and future releases will expand on the product in terms of capacity, distance and operations, administration, maintenance & provisioning (OAM&P). The product has attracted the interest of several CLECs, which would deploy the 6100 in every central office to create a mesh network. The incumbents are first looking at the product for fiber exhaust relief, but will eventually be interested in it to migrate to mesh networks. The 6100 can stand alone, but will be integrated into other Titan products. Tellabs is expected to announce a next-generation Titan 5500 system this month at SUPERCOMM.--Sue O'Keefe/Boston.FWIW-John |
