Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : Nortel Networks (NT) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (6504)	8/10/2000 2:46:39 PM
From: Kenneth E. Phillipps	Respond to of 14638

Mitel unveils optical "breakthrough" prototype Thu Aug 10 13:56:00 EDT 2000 (In U.S. dollars unless noted.) By Susan Taylor OTTAWA, Aug 10 (Reuters) - Mitel Corp. said on Thursday it has scored a key technical breakthrough and produced working prototypes of a chip that could cut costs and dramatically boost the performance of fiber-optic networks. Shares in the phone system and semiconductor company surged by as much as 21 percent after the announcement, as the market continued its love affair with firms developing equipment for the red-hot fiber-optic sector. Mitel said it is developing a chip that will help create more lanes to carry the voice, data and video traffic on fiber- optic networks. That would make it cheaper and more efficient to transport information over the glass fibers used in those networks. Known as Dense Wave Division Multiplexing, the chip technology boosts the number of wavelengths, or channels, that are used to carry traffic from a single beam of light. Mitel said it is developing a device that may cram as many as 80 channels, or wavelengths, onto a beam of light using standard semiconductor materials. Presently, most technology can handle 16 channels, with 40 channels available in products that use a technique called Arrayed Waveguide Grating, Mitel said. "We're working on something that has a lot more horsepower to it," said Mitel vice-president of communications Jacques Guerette. Mitel said it is using a technique called Echelle Grating to boost the number of channels rather than Arrayed Waveguide Grating, which it said has capacity, precision and production constraints. With Echelle Grating a laser is fired at a piece of reflective glass, shaped like a stair, that is mounted on a chip. Multiple reflections are then produced, with some wavelengths cancelled and others reinforced. The technique results in a greater number of reinforced wavelengths, and corresponding channels, than are produced by other grating techniques, Mitel said. Arrayed Waveguide Grating splits light by creating parallel waveguides on glass substrate, with each waveguide longer than the last so that light entering the device comes out as different wavelengths on the other end. "The existing fiber-optic industry is a competitor -- this is a technology that seemingly nobody else has, at least nobody else is talking about it," said Duncan Stewart, fund manager and technology analyst at Tera Capital Corp. who holds Mitel shares. "So if it works...that's very, very positive for Mitel." Companies developing fiber-optic equipment for internal and external sales include JDS Uniphase Corp. , Corning Inc. , SDL Inc. , Nortel Networks Corp. and Lucent Technologies Inc. . Mitel's "research breakthrough" includes capabilities in three key production techniques, Guerette said. The company said it has several proprietary techniques that it can patent for the chip fabrication. Mitel said it is able to accurately control the thick layers of glass that are deposited on a silicon base for the device, making performance more predictable. It is able to control etching on the glass, for more precise light reflection, and packaging of the devices, the company said. "Given the success that Mitel has had with their semiconductor line, I would hedge my bets and say what they've have here sounds good," said Brian Van Steen, analyst at optical market research group Ryan Hankin Kent. "I believe that they have something and I believe that they'll be able to capitalise on it." Mitel said its products, to be called LightRider, will likely be available to key customers for testing early in 2001. The technology is aimed at the market for urban networks, estimated presently at $375 million by market researchers Pioneer Consulting LLC and forecast to reach $2.04 billion by 2004. "It's potentially interesting," said Stewart. "They claim that they can make gratings that are much, much better than the way JDS and other people make them -- that may or may not be true, but it certainly would get people excited." Stock in Mitel added C$4.90 to C$30 on the Toronto Stock Exchange and gained 3-3/16 to 20-1/8 on New York. ($1=$1.48 Canadian) Rtr 13:56 08-10-00 Copyright 2000, Reuters News Service ragingbull.altavista.com

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (6504)	8/10/2000 3:34:04 PM
From: The Phoenix	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 14638

Gary is always talking about how provisioning of services, not bandwidth, is what is important. Would this be an example of Nortel provisioning a service (QoS) rather than just bandwidth? Would this make a big difference to carriers and enterprises with their critical mission applications? Yes, but NT still has a gapping hole in the middle. It'll be intersting to see how they fill given that they've devalued the BAY acquisition by dropping prices and giving away software. Are the engineers still there? Optics and web switching and nothing in between - strange..... OG

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (6504)	8/12/2000 2:43:25 PM
From: telecomguy	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 14638

Hi Kenneth, sorry for not responding earlier....very busy these days, trying to launch a new Internet based service in Europe. QoS down to the lambda level probably means not having to change from light waves to electic impulses. This is not really a provisioning of service issue but removing the bottleneck at the switching points in the core networks where everything slows down as lights get converted to elctro-mechanical signals in order to figure out where to switch the calls to and then reconverting-regenerating into light form before transmitting the waves to the next switching junction. So this is still a bandwidth issue -- and it's a critical issue because the core optical networks can transmit tremendous amount of data but all this thoroughput is gummed up the switching points. With respect to Gary's assertion that bandwidth is not important (because he thinks it will ultimately be free!) and that provisioning is where it's at.......he is really talking about value-added intelligence at the network level. Routers read the header packets and can then deal with the stream of data it receives accordingly.....this is not really provisioning of services so I am not sure what he is really talking about. You know, one of the problem with this business is that everyone throws high-level concepts and acronyms to define everything. Words like Provisioning, IP Company, Gorilla, etc. is very generic and doesn't contain much operational meaning. To say that NT is NOT an IP company because they are not strong in enterprise/carrier routing is an example of abusing the concept of what it is to be an IP enabling company. NT is DEFINTELY right in the thick of this major upgrade (and it's NOT a forklift upgrade despite what CSCO & Chambers would like to spin.......which is WHY CSCO is not getting any deals with the Carriers -- THEY DO NOT HAVE THE TECHNOLOGY, RESOURCES, EXPERIENCE, AND IMPLEMENTATION/PROJECT MGMT SKILLS to take an existing legacy/hybrid network and MIGRATE to an IP/mulit-media network -- and pretty well all major public networks are hodge-podge of switches/tranmsmission platforms -- old & new. In fact there is not even a consensus among the major Carriers that they need to ditch all their old gear (circuit-based switches, ATM boxes, etc.) and replace them with all-IP platforms. It will likely happen but as always, the Carriers will migrate their existing platforms as is required NOT because CSCO believes that all-IP platform is more efficient. (sure having a homogenous network is more efficient but that's simply not the way life works if you have invested hundreds of billions of $ in the existing network!). Companies like NT, LU, ALA will get the lion's share of the Carrier business as they move to bring new technology and application into their current hybrid network. I could talk 10 hours about why bandwidth will never be free as well.....but I've done that with Gary many times and this post is getting rather long! I am EXTREMELY confident that NT has the edge and taken the necessary steps in the past few years to take a huge market share in the all-important public networking infrastructure market. Now NT is really focusing on (as evidenced by purchases like Clarify, Architel, Promatory, Alteon & few others I can't even remember now!) extending their core networking dominance to the Edge/Enterprise niche so that they can become a major player for the ISP/ASP/E-Commerce gateways that will proliferate as PRIVATE enterprise networks get migrated into Service Provider network. All these trend favor NT's strength and point out CSCO's dilemma in moving their core competency from selling boxes (routers) to the enterprise to selling network-carrier grade infrastructure platforms. Hence CSCO's mad dash to acquire the technolgy/companies that they can leverage to play the Service Provider market...... the question is can they execute -- a BIG QUESTION MARK.....and probably one of the reason why CSCO is not taking off despite their stellar numbers.