Ciena still has many customers ;SPRINT and Bell Atlantic here
CIENA has begun producing 40-channel DWDM systems for Sprint Corp. that utilize 50 GHz channel spacings. Both the 40-channel systems and the 50 GHz spacings are industry _rsts.
Sprint, CIENAOs _rst customer and a leading interexchange carrier, has signed a three-year supply agreement for the MultiWave Sentry
4000 system. The agreement followed successful factory acceptance testing of the MultiWave Sentry 4000 at SprintOs
R&D laboratory in Burlingame, Calif. The system can be upgraded on a channel-by- channel basis to 96 channels, reaching a potential bandwidth of 240 Gbps.
Scalability in the Sprint network is Ocritical,O says Marty Kaplan, who serves as senior vice president and chief technology officer at the long-distance carrier.
CIENA has consistently delivered high-capacity DWDM systems to help meet the needs of SprintOs customers,O Kaplan says. OWith the MultiWave Sentry 4000, Sprint will continue its leadership position in voice and broadband services,O he adds.
OCIENAOs 40-channel system and the companyOs contract with Sprint mark the first commercial deployment of the second generation of long-haul WDM systems,O says Matthew Steinberg, director of optical networking based in South San Francisco, Calif. OWith this deployment, CIENA continues to maintain its lead in deploying high-channel-count WDM systems.
Bell Atlantic to Begin Installing CIENA
DWDM Equipment in New Jersey
Regional Bell Operating Company (RBOC) powerhouse Bell Atlantic has
announced plans to begin installing CIENAOs DWDM equipment along a 17-mile New Jersey route as part of a First Of_ce Application (FOA) using DWDM. The carrier also intends to place DWDM equipment in its own private internal network.
This is the _rst announced deployment of CIENA equipment by an RBOC.
OThere is no doubt in my mind that we are going to expand DWDM deployment if this is successful,O says Bob Gallo, member, technical staff, Outside Plant Transmission and Future Technologies at Bell Atlantic. ODWDM provides a quick alternative for interof_ce (IOF) _ber relief over a new _ber/conduit installation.O
The FOA, which connects two central New Jersey of_ces, will carry live traf_c along the Bell Atlantic network. The route is between the New Jersey cities of Freehold and New Brunswick and includes South River. Mr. Gallo characterized the demonstration as Oa step above a laboratory trial.O The FOA is part of a purchase agreement that CIENA has signed with Bell Atlantic for the next _ve years. General deployment is anticipated in the second half of this year, pending a successful FOA. CIENA's 40 Channel Units from page 1
OCIENAOs system is particularly attractive since it is an
Oopen systemO that can interface directly to legacy (pre-exist-
ing) optical transmitters,O says Stephen Montgomery,
president of ElectroniCast, located in San Mateo, Calif. OThe
CIENA system, for example, can interface to SONET/SDH
transmitters, and to asynchronous equipment. |
