<<I can't comment about the size of the market for the two different products but my opinion is that the optical transceiver has less competition at the moment. "
In one sense, distance, it has NO competition - and is not likely to have any for some time.
Look at what MRV states in their PR:
"This is the first 10Gb/s transceiver module in the industry using CWDM technology, with distance support up to 50km."
"This new optical 4xtransceiver line is offered at speeds of 4xOC12, 4xGigabit Ethernet or 4xOC48 and 1xOC-192 with distances up to 80km, 65km, and 50km respectively. The transceivers transmit four channels using four wavelengths in the 1.5 micrometer low loss fiber window."
"By using CWDM, multiple wavelength transmission eliminates the distance limitation imposed on high bit rate optical transmission. This technology brings the benefit afforded until now only to long-haul carrier backbones, to the regional and metropolitan
networks.
The "high bit rate" I bolded refers to 10gbps OC-192 rates. From what I have read in my research, fiber dispersion is a major problem limiting distance at OC-192 rates, but not at OC-48 rates. MRV is getting around this by using CHEAP CWDM (which I think only MRV has) technology to achieve 10gbps by combining FOUR OC-48 data streams seamlessly - the INPUT is 10gbps and the OUTPUT is 10gbps, but the transmission occurs as FOUR 2.5gbps OC-48 streams.
Now look at Gigabit Ethernet:
For this you need to know the difference between multimode fiber and singlemode fiber. Here are some definitions
"Multimode fiber is optical fiber that is designed to carry multiple light rays or modes concurrently, each at a slightly different reflection angle within the optical fiber core. Multimode fiber transmission is used for relatively short distances because the modes tend to disperse over longer lengths (this is called modal dispersion). For longer distances, single mode (sometimes called monomode) fiber is used. Multimode fiber has a larger core than single mode."
"singlemode fiber is optical fiber that is designed for the transmission of a single ray or mode of light as a carrier and is used for long-distance signal transmission."
Let's look at GE distances closer. The GE max distance over the common multimode fiber is 500-550 meters and 5km over singlemode fiber.
The use of CWDM effectively extends the distance of GE over any type of fiber to 50-65km! And not just one GE link, but FOUR! This is a BIG difference - as Metro Network nodes are typically less than than that apart, and Enterprises use Ethernet heavily - and would want GE rates over metro networks.
The distance of low-cost OC-192 and GE transmission was the key in this announcement |
