Making the Internet local
Nortel to wed Ethernet, optics
KEN BRANSON
Nortel Networks has pulled together its OPTera Metro DWDM platform, IP/Optical Service Node and Preside service management software to offer the Optical Ethernet portfolio, which company officials say will combine the speed of optics with the simplicity of Ethernet technology, all in aid of bringing Internet content closer to the customer and making the Internet local.
CEO John Roth spoke about “the local Internet” at Supercomm in June, catching some of his own executives off-guard with his timing. “It threw us into a bit of a tizzy,” one executive says. “He let the cat out of the bag a little sooner than we wanted him to.”
Now, however, Nortel executives say they’ve put some fur on that cat, and are briefing analysts and reporters on the Optical Ethernet portfolio. Nortel seeks to leverage its market presence – its executives claim a 48 percent market share in communications opto-electronics in North America – against the continuing demand for bandwidth. They see enterprise outsourcing as their main chance.
Professional services are also part of the portfolio, Nortel officials say. They believe that enterprise outsourcing offers them their main chance. They will pitch a soup-to-nuts, end-to-end, geeks-plus-geekery solution to carriers, in which they will offer OPTera, Preside, the node, and enough expertise to design, build and manage an optical Internet data center.
None of these products is new. But Nortel executives insist that the marriage of Ethernet technology with optics is new. They also insist that the reason for the marriage is new. They want to bring break down the barrier between Ethernet-based LANs (the communications environment inside 80 percent of North American offices, they claim) and SONET-based wide-area networks. In fact, they believe they can essentially eliminate the entire idea of WANs by turning metropolitan areas into what amount to large LANs.
Nortel has two beta customers for the new product set so far -- Bell Nexxia Ltd. in Canada and Utfors, a Swedish competitive telecom carrier. Nortel officials say they will have a series of announcements of customers, partners and products over the next few months. |
