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Technology Stocks : Ciena (CIEN) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Glenn D. Rudolph who wrote (2298)	6/11/1998 1:25:00 AM
From: Brian	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 12623

Supercomm '98 Tuesday Show Report: Ciena showed off their 24 channel metro WDM system available by the end of the year news.fiberopticsonline.com Reported by Erik Kreifeldt ATLANTA - Fiber vendors showed off their newly-launched transmission systems at the Tuesday opening of the Supercomm '98 exhibit. Ciena set up its booth with the debut of its 96 channel WDM system and its 24 channel metro WDM system. The 120 Gbps metro product, commercially available by the end of the year, supports a two-fiber ring configuration. With a demo in the exhibit hall, Ciena is illustrating the capability of the metro product to handle multiple protocols. Ciena is running a simulated long-haul link between its 16-channel WDM system and a Cisco IP router that sports a 2.5 Gbps interface, transporting a 2.5 Gbps channel handed off by the metro product.Feeding the simulated WDM metro ring are a Cisco ATM router with a 622 Mbps interface, another Cisco router with a 2.5 Gbps interface, and, for good measure, an OC-3 SONET multiplexer supplied by Advanced Fibre Communications. "Were carrying IP in the long haul and short haul without touching a SONET mux," says Denny Bilter, Ciena's director of marketing. But Ciena also pitches the metro system as a more cost effective alternative to installing multiple OC-48 access rings. On Ciena's heels in the metro WDM space is Osicom, which boasts five customers in North America, Europe, and Asia for its 16-channel metro WDM. At the show, Osicom is demonstrating its Electrical Photonic Concentrator (EPC) technology, which subdivides WDM channels and enables service providers to carry traffic from customer premises equipment-without throwing away capacity. Osicom offers EPC in its new 32-channel WDM, enabling it to carry 512 OC-3 signals over one fiber. Osicom promises 64-wavelength WDM as soon as a customer fills 32. The systems sport 1+1 protection that does not interfere with SONET ring restoration, Osicom claims. In the exhibit hall, Osicom hooked its 32-channel WDM system to a three20ode SONET ring made up of OC-48 multiplexers supplied by NEC. Osicom is also loading up a Fore ATM switch with a 155 Mbps interface. Osicom is targeting CLECs that want to steal away data business from incumbents, says Ron Mackey, Osicom's executive v.p. of technology. While Osicom touts the cost savings of its transparent architecture for data service vs. converting IP protocols to SONET, others say that price is still too high. Also courting the CLEC community is Positron Fiber Systems, which launched an OC-48 card for its access-optimized SONET platform at Supercomm. Positron's Andrew Knott, v.p. of sales and marketing, maintains that SONET's price and functionality win out in access rings with single customers connected at 622 Mbps rates and lower. SONET was the focus of yet another Supercomm exhibit hall demo by the SONET Interoperability forum. Building on a seven-vendor OC-3 ring demo at Supercomm '97, this year's demo upped the ante to OC-48 with equipment from Alcatel, Fujitsu, and Nortel. The simulated linear OC-48 segment was fed by an OC-3 ring with Tellabs, Positron, Nortel, and Lucent equipment, and an OC-12 ring with Fujitsu, Tellabs, DSC, Lucent, Alcatel, and Positron equipment. Applied Innovation supplied network management functions. Although the number of vendors exceeds a real-world application, the OC-48 segment mirrors the scenario of interconnecting carrier networks supplied by different vendors-a point not lost on SIF chair Don Thorp, manager for SONET network platforms at Americtech, an RBOC poised to be acquired by SBC. OC-48 interoperability enables carriers to interconnect networks without scrambling to match vendor brand names. Watch FiberopticsOnline for more daily Supercomm coverage. Brian