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Technology Stocks : Lucent Technologies (LU) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: No_underscores who wrote (14639)	5/4/2000 9:28:00 PM
From: Georgeb	Respond to of 21876

N_u, I don't know how well the product line is going to do. It is an IP based networking technology that seems to be on the right track. OptiStar connects a server's PCI bus into a single mode 1310 nm fiber (using Fabry-Perot lasers to keep costs down) to the WAN (IP over SONET). I believe that they also have a flavor that connects to a Gigabit Ethernet. There is also a PCI bus connected FC for a server connection to storage devices at 1000 Mbps. The network servers can be linked directly to add-drop multiplexers, DWDM transponders, and SONET rings so that IP packets can be moved to backbones without an optoelectronic conversion. Lucent intended OptiStar to be a low cost way for companies to manage their own private networks as opposed to outsourcing the network management to network service providers. Those service provider costs are getting cheaper because of the increased competition, so it becomes a race to reduce costs. I've read that it is still cheaper to set up one's own optical network with OptiStar than to get managed SONET service from a local carrier. There is another advantage to "rolling your own". The IP traffic can travel at its own native speed and protocol without matching the preset SONET interfaces of a managed service. George