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

To: Daniel G. DeBusschere who wrote (2925)	9/11/1998 4:02:00 PM
From: Beltropolis Boy	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 12623

TLAB understands that if Ciena is picked up by Ascend for example then core TLAB SONET products are at serious risk of displacement by ATM-DWDM integration. It is a given that fiber is going to be connected to DWDM equipment. What's going to be connected to the DWDM equipment? SONET gear built by the good ole boys or ATM gear built by Ascend or CSCO? daniel. actually, CIEN has already demonstrated IP directly over optical networks, eliminating the use of both SONET and ATM switches in intervening network layers. notions of vaporware aside, CIEN's 96-wave sentry line does include an optical interface that connects directly to CSCO's gigabit switch router (read: GSR 12000). while i'm by no means a telecom (or datacom) techie, this is what i gather: SONET rings (signals) come into a service node, then go through a light-wave terminal, are converted from optical to electrical, then multiplexed down and put through a digital cross-connect. yet, this entire process happens to all traffic even though, say half, simply goes to the next office. birck has a vision for DWDM as a true networking technology, not just a bandwidth expansion technology. but optical networking only starts with DWDM. birck sees this next generation technology as optical cross-connect systems, which direct optical signals without first converting them into electrical signals. from the marketing boys, these DWDM systems will have enough capacity (400 gbps) to transmit 90,000 volumes of an encyclopedia in one second. sounds great in theory, huh? i'm sure someone more knowledgeable can shed some light (pun terribilis). -chris.