"Next-gen lines will be coherent only"

 Glenn Wellbrock, Verizon Business

Here is a sample of some of the noteworthy papers.

When writing features for FibreSystems Europe, I repeatedly asked for high-resolution striking images. The magazine's editors always wanted photos that included people, like Maurice Broomfield's photos.  Getting hold of such images did happen but not often.

Inspired by the Financial Times’ interview and Maurice Broomfield's beautiful images, some of the better images sent are presented here.

IBM data centre

This is the silicon photonic start-up’s first announced modulator. The design has been developed in conjunction with Sun Microsystems as part of the DAPRA Ultraperformance Nanophotonic Intrachip Communications (UNIC) programme.

An image of the modulator and a cross-section diagram of the ring waveguide. Source: Kotura

These are the findings of an operator study conducted by Analysys Mason on behalf of Amdocs, the business and operational support systems (BSS/ OSS) vendor.

Columns (left to right): 1) Stove-pipe solutions and legacy systems with no time-lined consolidated view 2) Too much time spent on manual processes 3) Too much time (or too little time) and investment on integration efforts with different OSS 4) Lack of consistent processes or tools to roll-out same resources/ technologies 5) Competition difficulties 6) Delays in launching new services. Source: Analysys MasonClick here to view full chart

Guest blog on Lightwave magazine, click here.

Event:

Alcatel-Lucent has launched its 1870 Transport Tera Switch (TTS) that has a switch capacity of 4 Terabits-per-second (Tbps). The platform switches and grooms traffic at 1Gbps granularity while supporting lightpaths up to 100Gbps.

“It is designed to address the explosion of traffic in core networks, driven by video and the move to cloud computing among others,” says Alberto Valsecchi, vice president of marketing, optics activities at Alcatel-Lucent.

The 1870 TTS supports next-generation Optical Transport Network (OTN), carrier Ethernet and SONET/SDH protocols, as well as generalized multiprotocol label switching/ automatically switched optical network (GMPLS/ ASON) control plane technology to enable network management and traffic off-load between the IP core and optical layers.

"It [the 1870 TTS]  is designed to address the explosion of traffic in core networks"

Alberto Valsecchi, Alcatel-Lucent

Optical equipment and transceiver makers have much in common.  Both must contend with the challenge of yearly network traffic growth and both are addressing the issue similarly: using faster interfaces, reducing power consumption and making designs more compact and flexible.  

Yet if equipment makers and transceiver vendors share common technical goals, the market challenges they face differ. For optical transceiver vendors, the challenges are particularly complex.

LightCounting's global optical transceiver sales forecast. In 2009 the market was $2.10bn and will rise to $3.42bn in 2013

At first sight, optical transceiver vendors have little scope for product differentiation. Modules are defined through a multi-source agreement (MSA) and used to transport specified protocols over predefined distances.

“Their attitude is let the big guys kill themselves at 40 and 100 Gig while they beat down costs"

Vladimir Kozlov, LightCounting

System vendors may adore optical transceivers but there is a concern about how multi-source agreements originate. 

Optical transceiver form factors, defined through multi-source agreements (MSAs), benefit equipment vendors by ensuring there are several suppliers to choose from.  No longer must a system vendor develop its own or be locked in with a supplier.

“Personally, the MSA is the worst thing that has happened to the optical industry”

Marek Tlaka, Luxtera