Has ASND made a WDM announcement? New article on COMS, BAY, Packet and Cambrian WDM LAN demonstration
infoworld.com
Gigabit LANs to span miles of fiber
By Stephen Lawson
InfoWorld Electric
Posted at 4:00 PM PT, Apr 24, 1998
A technology to be demonstrated at NetWorld+Interop in Las Vegas in May could make
it feasible for enterprises to set up Gigabit Ethernet LANs across metropolitan area
networks.
Bay Networks, 3Com, and Packet Engines will join with Cambrian Systems, a maker of
wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) equipment, to demonstrate Gigabit Ethernet
transmitted directly via the efficient optical networking technology.
With WDM, data is transmitted in multiple wavelengths of light, so optical fiber can be
used efficiently and the cost of bandwidth to each user sharing the fiber is reduced.
The networking companies will connect Gigabit Ethernet interfaces from LAN routing
switches into Cambrian's Optera Wavelength Division Multiplexing platform to show the
viability of high-speed LAN connectivity across a metropolitan area at a reasonable cost.
Bay will link a Gigabit Ethernet interface on its Accelar 1200 routing switch to the
Cambrian hardware. Company officials said this approach would not require any
conversion of the Ethernet traffic between one enterprise site and another location across
the metropolitan area. A LAN could be extended over a service provider's fiber network
or over leased fiber, Bay officials said.
"The services you could offer over a metropolitan area would be the same ones you could
use on the enterprise itself," said Richard Pierce, director of business development at Bay's
Internet and Telecom Business Unit.
Cisco this week announced a partnership with Ciena to develop carrier-class solutions that
combine Cisco's routers and switches with WDM equipment from Ciena, using
synchronous optical network technology.
Pierce said that Bay and Cambrian's solution would be simpler for most enterprises
because it can use standard Ethernet packets without introducing another technology.
According to Cambrian officials Bay, 3Com, and Packet Engines have not established
partnerships with Cambrian beyond the joint demonstration.
Cambrian Systems Corp., in Kanata, Ontario, can be reached at (613) 599-6060 or
cambriansys.com. Bay Networks Inc., in Santa Clara, Calif., can be reached
at (800) 822-9638 or baynetworks.com. 3Com Corp., in Santa Clara, Calif.,
can be reached at (408) 764-5000 or 3com.com. Packet Engines Inc., in
Spokane, Wash., can be reached at (509) 777-7000 or packetengines.com.
Stephen Lawson is a senior writer for InfoWorld.
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