First time I have seen DYNAMIC DENSE WDM mentioned by anyone other than MRVC.
March 22, 12:01 am Eastern Time
Optical Networks tackles city networks' data snarl
By Simon Hirschfeld
NEW YORK, March 22 (Reuters) - Optical Networks, a privately held telecommunications equipment startup, is
working to address the massive influx of data over networks originally intended to handle traditional telephone calls.
''The public networks can barely support the current version of the Internet, and the industry is looking for
fundamental changes in the existing transport infrastructure,'' the company says in a mission statement.
In the first public discussion of their strategy, company officials said they plan to give potential customers -- large corporations and metropolitan
telecom carriers like the Baby Bells and their local competitors -- more control over their networks.
Since being founded in January 1998, Optical Networks, based in San Jose, Calif., has been developing a new generation of high-capacity
equipment that it expects will meet user needs more directly than offerings from large telecom equipment makers.
''The average sophistication of the operator is going down, but the sophistication of the technology is going way up,'' Hugh Martin, chairman and
chief executive, told Reuters.
''The gap between the technology they're operating and their sophistication is the software,'' he added.
Using an operating system comparable to a computer operating system, Optical Networks would make public networks more like the smaller ones
that companies run internally.
Optical Networks, which has attracted talent from telecom companies like Canada's Nortel Networks (Toronto:NTL.TO - news) and France's
Alcatel Alsthom , as well as data communications companies like Cisco Systems Inc. (Nasdaq:CSCO - news), has raised $34 million in venture
capital financing.
Investors include Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, the technology venture capital firm, and Cisco, which has invested $4.4 million for a 4
percent stake.
Optical Networks hopes to begin generating revenues as soon as the first quarter of 2000, be profitable in the fourth quarter of 2000, and would
then consider an initial public offering.
Customers have been ''kicking the tires,'' and company officials think they will announce customer trials by midyear.
Companies such as Ciena Corp. (Nasdaq:CIEN - news), Lucent Technologies Inc. (NYSE:LU - news) and Nortel have been successful at
upgrading long-distance networks, using dense wave division multiplexing technology (DWDM), which increases capacity by breaking up fibers
into multiple channels.
Optical Networks believes it can go much further by offering more than just sheer capacity, and allow networks to respond to surges in traffic and
system failures, and route data more efficiently.
''What we have for the first time is dynamic DWDM, coupled with the industry's first operating system,'' Rohit Sharma, vice president and chief
architect, said.
The system would allow users to pay for variable amounts of bandwidth, which Martin said would be attractive to a company like Amazon.com
Inc. (Nasdaq:AMZN - news), whose bandwidth needs vary from day to day and season to season.
Benny |
