From a brother from another planet:
OPTICAL FIBER CONF -tommorow
by: drstevenjfalken 03/19/01 11:36 am EST
Msg: 22941 of 22972
from a technologist on Gilder site this reference:
"Avanex will demonstrate a working model of a realistic switchless metro network, both the interoffice ring and metro access link, all-optical, meaning that the electronics now between the interoffice and access link will be eliminated. The HUB, or interface with the long-haul backbone, will have tunable lasers sitting on boards developed by Avanex which will tune to the proper wavelength depending on destination of the data. The demo will use 32 channels because that is state of the art today in metro and because tunable laser technology today is still young. After all, they want to convince metro networks and systems integrators that this is real. Avanex is looking at three sources for their lasers and will choose very soon. They would not hint at who and I have no idea.
So, to continue with the demo, the interoffice ring, a total of about 200 km or so (a good sized metro for today), will have a number of nodes which will either let lambdas through or add/drop all optically depending on wavelength. Avanex uses the PowerExchanger to add or drop channels and includes the ability to equalize channel power. These are not switches -- they use the PowerMux to make on-off ramps for lambdas based on wavelength.
Avanex will also demonstrate its PowerExpress in a metro version. This product was developed in 6 months at the request of a networker and has been qualified in MCI labs already. This will enable all-optical reach in large metro networks with many lambdas. I had read recently that MCI is reconsidering its metro philosophy and may dump Sonet/Nortel in favor of a radical paradigm shift toward WDM. I read about a number of companies that might be in on this, but Avanex not mentione in the article. So I asked, "The article was right about the shift but wrong about the players?" I got a big smile.
The next-gen PowerMux, I believe now in beta, will not only be radically cheaper in cost per lambda, but will also be much more precise, able to go down to 0.5 GHz spacing and denser. I don't know if this will be in the demo, but Simon told me that he will use the NxG PM to modulate using a frequency shift without electronic conversion to get 100 additional subchannels in the metro access which comes off the access link. This is where we have links to homes and businesses and really need the most connectivity. So there would be 3,200 subchannels per fiber (32 x 100) and you would do frequency add/drop, not lambda add/drop.
What all this shows is that it is already possible to have a switchless metro with today's more modest number of lambdas compared to what may be on the horizon. MCI apparently realizes this now and this will force the hand of integrators and other networks.
So Avanex is a premier metro company and I think many of its components and modules will find their way to the more forward looking systems integrators like ONI and into the forward looking networks in a big way before 18 months. That's saying a lot." |
