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

To: PaperChase who wrote (10681)	5/21/2001 7:59:44 AM
From: Kenneth E. Phillipps	Respond to of 14638

PaperChase, I do not feel comfortable answering that question except to say that the components in the long haul transport product are substantially different from the metro transport product. Obviously, the need for amplification would be different. Frank Coluccio would be a much better person to answer that question.

To: PaperChase who wrote (10681)	5/21/2001 12:06:52 PM
From: Frank A. Coluccio	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 14638

Hello Paper Chase, "What is the difference in product offerings between NT's Optical Metro products and Optical Inter-city products? In NT's last earnings press release, they said that their Optical Metro is very strong but Optical Inter-city is faltering." There are at least two separate issues to consider when comparing the LH and metro product lines. In one sense it's a matter of where there is already sufficient capacity, ostensibly, and that would be in the LH. OTOH, in the metro domain traffic demands are increasingly dramatically, being largely accounted for by the allure of metro GbE and other native protocols. The other major issue that Ken referred to has to do with the costs associated with LH, being of a different basic construction in order to more adequately contend with optical properties and impairments over greater distances. The longer the unregenerated span the larger the demands made on the components that are used for line conditioning, and the transponders used for OEO functions. These are less pronounced (and sometimes missing entirely) in the metro. Long Haul systems, because of the distances they cover, are far more sensitive to various forms of dispersion and other anomalies than the metro units are, and often must use guard bands against the effects of nonlinearities and dispersion. In the long haul these effects are cumulative over distance until they undergo 3R regeneration. Of course, the trick is to extend (increase) the distances that are spanned before 3R OEO is required, hence the costlier design in the terminal DWDM devices in order to achieve this, to begin with. The foregoing is greatly oversimplified, but it addresses the main design factors that result in the differences that I believe Ken was discussing. I don't know if these explanations satisfy your question. If not, please re-frame the question. FAC