FIBR's WDM Product vs. CIEN's
Osicom GigaMux Cienna MultiWave 1600
Market Emphasis Metropolitan networks Long distance communication
Fiber Amplifier Required? No Yes
Bi-directional transmis- Yes No
sion over a single fiber
OC-48 Compatible Yes Yes
Transponder Price $36,300 $50,000
OC-12 Compatible Yes Yes
Transponder Price $9,000 $50,000
Broadband Video Yes No
Network Management SNMP, TCP/IP, PPP SNMP, TCP/IP, PPP
Full 16 Channel Link $300K - $850K $500K - $1.5mill
Other Format Gigabit Ethernet, ???
Fibre Channel, HDTV
So far, Cienna has been the market leader of DWDM technology. There are
other players in the market (Lucent, IBM, Tellabs, etc.).
Cienna's product uses optical amplifiers extensively, even for short
distance applications. CIEN uses fiber amplifiers in its optical
terminals to compensate power loss of their WDM components and optical
modulators. By using low loss WDM components, Osicom uses no amplifiers
in its terminal equipment, therefore greatly increasing the system reliabliity.
Since Osicom's market focus is for geographic radius 100 km or smaller,there
is no line amplifiers needed, therefore greatly reducing the network management
burden. Eliminating fiber amplifiers also makes bi-directional transmission
over single fiber possible. Bi-directional transmission is an important
requirement for many networking applications. Osicom has the ability to
supply fiber amplifiers if needed.
Ciena claims their product supports data rates between 50Mb/s to 2.5 Gb/s.
Their design forces the users of lower speed to pay the same price as for
high-end. Osicom provides much more flexible choices for users and therefore
provides customers more cost-effective solutions.
Osicom takes advantage of its market position in networking and broadband
communications and is capable of providing wide spectrum of data formats
including broadband video for CATV and other applications.
In the price comparison, Ciena's system is cited from their annual report,
and possibly the net price. on the other hand, Osicom's price is the list price. |
