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Nortel Leads Optical Networking Band
By Joe McGarvey, Inter@ctive Week
March 27, 2000 7:39 AM ET
Nortel Networks is composing a new tune these days, riffing on a catchy optical networking theme. With a $1.43 billion agreement last week to purchase optical networking component maker CoreTek, Nortel extended its unprecedented buying spree and beefed up its optical technology arsenal with laser technology that is expected to play a major role in the evolution of the public network.
CoreTek makes so-called tunable lasers, a more flexible version of optical lasers that analysts said will increase the ability of carriers and service providers to build networks that can withstand the expected astronomical surge in Internet traffic.
"There's a pretty unanimous agreement that tunable lasers are one of the key enablers to the all-optical network," said Scott Clavenna, an analyst at research group Pioneer Consulting. "Whoever has them early will be in a good position."
Lasers are optical networking components used by bandwidth-multiplying devices known as Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing gear. Generally, the lasers in DWDM gear, which are responsible for creating a separate channel, or wavelength, of capacity on a fiber-optic cable, operate at a fixed frequency. However, tunable lasers can be reprogrammed to operate at a range of frequencies.
The one-size-fits-all nature of tunable lasers offers several advantages to carriers and large service providers. The most immediate benefit will be a reduction in inventory and replacement parts, said Greg Mumford, president of the optical networking division at Nortel. "We have the ability to use a single part for a multiplicity of wavelengths," he added.
The savings, Mumford said, will come from enabling carriers to reduce inventory. A DWDM system capable of carving a fiber into 100 wavelengths, for example, would require 100 lasers, each tuned to a different frequency. To ensure adequate protection from a failure, service providers must now stock replacement lasers tuned to specific wavelengths. With tunable lasers, which can be tuned to multiple frequencies, carriers no longer have to stock a replacement for each active laser.
No Conversions
The more promising benefit, however, is the role tunable lasers will play in the creation of all-optical networks. With the ability to change frequencies in a fraction of a second, a tunable laser could be used by optical switches to quickly route wavelengths from one fiber to another without requiring traffic in the optical stream to be converted to an electronic format.
Nortel plans to pair CoreTek's technology with optical switching gear acquired with this month's $3.25 billion purchase of Xros. Analysts said the pairing with the Xros system, which uses tiny mirrors to manage the routing of wavelengths of light, will enable Nortel to overcome the Xros switch's inability to alter the frequency of a wavelength.
At least one carrier, European-based Telenor, has announced a trial using tunable lasers to switch wavelengths of light to quickly provision new services. Telenor's service is based on tunable lasers from start-up Altitun.
In addition to CoreTek and Altitun, start-up Bandwidth9 is working on tunable la-sers. Several established companies, such as Lucent Technologies, also have tunable lasers in the works.
Further down the road, tunable lasers will enable carriers to not just switch wavelengths, which are broad bandwidth streams that range in size from 2.5 gigabits per second to 10 Gbps, but also to manipulate individual packets of data within the optical domain.
"Packet switching will be a third stage of tunable lasers," said Parviz Tayebati, president and chief executive of CoreTek. "We expect that in the next four or five years that will become reality."
Researchers at Stanford University recently delivered a paper detailing their experiments using tunable lasers to switch packets of information in the optical domain. In addition, Bell Labs scientists at Lucent are also working on designing tunable lasers that can change frequencies fast enough to switch packets of data traffic.
Analysts cautioned, however, that tunable laser technology is still immature. Mark Lutkowitz, an analyst at research firm TransFormation, said tunable lasers are still subject to drifting in and out of the proper frequency range.
For Nortel, the CoreTek agreement, which is contingent on the company meeting unspecified manufacturing milestones, is the third multibillion-dollar deal in a few months. In addition to Xros, Nortel acquired long-distance optical networking gear maker Qtera in December 1999 for $3.25 billion.
Nortel's Mumford said the traditionally conservative networking giant might not be finished shopping. "We haven't stopped looking or investing," he said. "This optical networking industry will change rapidly." |
