Brian, they left out the really big news.
Tellium To Launch Next-Generation Optical 'Super Switch' for Large Scale Optical Networks at SUPERCOMM '99
Business Wire - April 29, 1999 13:33
OCEANPORT, N.J.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 29, 1999--Tellium, Inc. announced today the introduction of its new Aurora-512 optical cross connect switch, the highest capacity optical layer
switching element available in the telecommunications industry.
Tellium's new "super switch" has a capacity of 512 optical connections. Each optical connection operates at 2.5 Gb/s (OC-48/STM-16) for a total switching capacity of 1.28 Terabits per second.
The launch of the new Aurora-512 product will take place in June at SUPERCOMM '99 in Atlanta.
"Tellium was first to bring an optical cross connect to market last year when we introduced the Aurora-32 at SUPERCOMM '98," said Mike Hodges, Tellium's president and CEO.
"Working with all of our customers with the Aurora-32 showed us just how huge the opportunity is for optical cross connects. We are simply taking advantage of our early lead to capture the significant market opportunity that exists for larger, more scalable switches which address the exploding growth of high speed data and the need for more OC-N-based services.
"The tremendous cost savings provided by the Aurora-512 will be immediately apparent to customers."
Hodges believes that the market is ready to truly embrace optical switching.
"From the very beginning, Tellium's vision has been to create survivable and reconfigurable optical networks. While we will continue to support existing DWDM customers, we fully intend to focus
our resources and expertise on delivering the optical switching and routing products to ensure that vision becomes reality," Hodges said.
Earlier this year, Tellium shipped several Aurora-32 switches to the MONET consortium network in Washington, D.C. for test and deployment. Tellium has agreements in place with other IXC and LEC customers to evaluate the product. In fact, Aurora has already successfully passed one of these lab evaluations and is going to field trials for deployment later in the year.
The new "super switch," Aurora-512, allows service providers to cross-connect high-speed optical signals (up to OC-48) bypassing the entire SONET/DCS layer. Cost savings are immediate and
significant.
Aurora-512 also performs additional optical networking tasks such as restoration, dynamic wavelength management and network gateway functions.
Key features of the Aurora-512 include:
-- 512 bi-directional ports, up to OC-48 line rate
-- OC-192 port scalable
-- Fully redundant switch architecture
-- I/O port protection 1:N user programmable
-- Optical line protection switching less than 50 msec
-- SONET performance monitoring
-- Optical ring restoration
-- Optical mesh restoration software
Industry Background
During the past year, the telecommunications industry has seen wide-scale deployments of point-to-point DWDM and OC-192 transport systems to relieve fiber exhaust in the core networks,
creating the need for dynamic reconfigurable, survivable optical networking. OC-48 line rates are now the de facto standard as the basic building block for the expansion of existing networks and for
construction of new networks.
As more DWDM systems were installed to create additional capacity, operators found themselves with a new problem -- how to manage traffic across their networks in units of OC-48 with the same degree of survivability and control that they have today at a much slower electrical DS-3 (45Mb/s) rate.
"Yesterday's networks were built with DS-3 'bricks.' The brick for tomorrow's networks is OC-48, and the Aurora-512 is the perfect intelligent switching element for optical layer networks,"
concluded Hodges.
Additionally, network operators, faced with the problem that revenue is not growing as fast as demand for the bandwidth, must find lower-cost solutions for building capacity. In the past several
years, operator's costs have sky-rocketed with the tremendous growth in demand for network capacity, largely fueled by the growth in the Internet and corporate data applications.
To solve the problem of demand for bandwidth, operators are looking to Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing technology as the solution -- albeit an expensive one. At the same time that operators are installing "virtual fibers" to carry more traffic, the nature of the traffic itself is changing dramatically. The fastest growing type of traffic is data, framed in either IP packets or ATM cells,
which is not efficiently handled by today's voice-centric networks which use dedicated circuits.
Tellium Background
Tellium is headquartered in a 67,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in Oceanport. In 1997, it
ecame the commercial spin-off from Telcordia (formerly Belcore), the one-time research arm of
the Regional Bell Operating Companies (RBOCs). Strategic industry partners include Telcordia,
SAIC, Cisco, and Ortel Corp., and investment partners include Oak Investment Partners, Accel
Partners, Worldview Technology Partners and Blue Rock Capital Investors.
Tellium's optical cross connect product, Aurora-32, was the first-to-market in the
telecommunications industry and is the cornerstone network element of survivable mesh and ring
optical networks.
Tellium's robust portfolio of intellectual property is providing the seeds for new products and
services. More information about Tellium can be found on the Internet at www.tellium.com.
CONTACT: Tellium Inc.
Corporate Contact:
Richard Barcus, VP, Marketing & Product Management
732/923-4129
732/923-9085
rbarcus@tellium.com
or
Media contact:
Stackig Public Relations
Holly Pollinger, 703/761-2531
703/342-2594
hpollinger@stackig.com
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