Ciena shops for photonic technology for line-side edge

Briefing: DWDM developments

Part 3: Acquisitions and silicon photonics

Ciena is to acquire the high-speed photonics components division of Teraxion for $32 million. The deal includes 35 employees and Teraxion’s indium phosphide and silicon photonics technologies. The systems vendor is making the acquisition to benefit its coherent-based packet-optical transmission systems in metro and long-haul networks.

Sterling Perrin

“Historically Ciena has been a step ahead of others in introducing new coherent capabilities to the market,” says Ron Kline, principal analyst, intelligent networks at market research company, Ovum. “The technology is critical to own if they want to maintain their edge.”

“Bringing in-house not everything, just piece parts, are becoming differentiators,” says Sterling Perrin, senior analyst at Heavy Reading.    

Ciena designs its own WaveLogic coherent DSP-ASICs but buys its optical components. Having its own photonics design team with expertise in indium-phosphide and silicon photonics will allow Ciena to develop complete line-side systems, optimising the photonics and electronics to benefit system performance.

Click to read more ...

Ovum Q&A: Infinera as an end-to-end systems vendor

Infinera hosted an Insight analyst day on October 6th to highlight its plans now that it has acquired metro equipment player, Transmode. Gazettabyte interviewed Ron Kline, principal analyst, intelligent networks at market research firm, Ovum, who attended the event.    

Q. Infinera’s CEO Tom Fallon referred to this period as a once-in-a-decade transition as metro moves from 10 Gig to 100 Gig. The growth is attributed mainly to the uptake of cloud services and he expects this transition to last for a while. Is this Ovum’s take?  

Ron Kline, OvumRK: It is a transition but it is more about coherent technology rather than 10 Gig to 100 Gig. Coherent enables that higher-speed change which is required because of the level of bandwidth going on in the metro.

We are going to see metro change from 10 Gig to 100 Gig, much like we saw it change from 2.5 Gig to 10 Gig. Economically, it is going to be more feasible for operators to deploy 100 Gig and get more bang for their buck.

Click to read more ...

Infinera introduces flexible grid 500G super-channel ROADM

Infinera has unveiled a flexible grid, reconfigurable optical add/drop multiplexer (ROADM) to complement its DTN-X optical networking platform.

An example showing the impact of a 500G super-channel ROADM node. Source: Infinera

"The FlexROADM will open up the Tier-1 operators in a way Infinera has not been able to do before," says Dana Cooperson, vice president, network infrastructure at market research firm, Ovum. "The DTN-X was necessary but not sufficient; the ROADM is the last piece."

Click to read more ...

Ovum on Infinera's Intelligent Transport Network strategy

Infinera announced that TeliaSonera International Carrier (TSIC) is extending the use of its DTN-X to its European network, having already adopted the platform in the US. Infinera has also outlined the next evolution in its networking strategy, dubbed the Intelligent Transport Network.

Dana Cooperson

Gazettabyte asked Dana Cooperson, vice president and practice leader, and Ron Kline, principal analyst, both in the network infrastructure group at market research firm, Ovum, about the announcement and Infinera's outlined strategy.

Click to read more ...