Verizon Communications (New York City) chose Lucent Technologies (Murray Hill, NJ) as one of several providers of advanced optical technology to help evolve Verizon's next-generation SONET network. Under the three-year agreement, Verizon will deploy the Lucent Metropolis DMX portfolio of metro optical-networking products and the LambdaUnite MultiService Switch, a high-capacity platform that will manage traffic from many metro/access networks.
Sprint (Overland Park, KS) has begun routing voice and data traffic on three new fiber-optic rings throughout the San Francisco and Oakland metro areas, San Jose, and many surrounding communities throughout Silicon Valley. The three MAN rings combine with two existing area rings, which were deployed last year, to enhance communications network reliability and monitoring capabilities to area customers. The five wireline fiber-optic rings connect the Sprint network to several local telecommunications exchange points of presence and end offices. In addition, the metro network connects to several Sprint mobile switching centers, which route wireless calls for local PCS customers of Sprint. The five rings total 189 mi.
Broadwing Communications (Austin, TX) lit approximately 1,200 additional all-optical route miles along the east coast of Florida, extending the company's nationwide all-optical core from Atlanta to Miami. This network expansion gives Broadwing's enterprise and carrier customers in Miami, Tampa, Orlando, Jacksonville, Tallahassee, and other Florida cities additional bandwidth and new on-network diversity (or route-redundancy) capabilities.
Squire Creek Communications selected passive-optical-network equipment from Alcatel (Dallas) for the build-out of the Choudrant, LA-based Squire Creek golf community's voice, video, and high-speed data communications network. Squire Creek will use the Alcatel 7340 FTTU (Fiber to the User) system in the network implementation. In related news, Alcatel and Carrier Access (Boulder, CO) completed interoperability testing between the Alcatel 7340 product line and the Carrier Access Exxtenz optical-network terminal for business applications.
The Utah Telecommunication Open Infrastructure Agency (UTOPIA) selected the RG223 Residential Gateway from Allied Telesyn (Bothell, WA) as the customer premises solution in the Phase I rollout of fiber to the premises services. Covering Salt Lake City and 17 surrounding cities that encompass some 250,000 households and 35,000 businesses, UTOPIA is the world's largest fiber to the home and business project launched to date, Allied Telesyn says. In Phase I of the UTOPIA project (scheduled to begin early next year), project consultant DynamicCity will oversee deployment of an all-fiber network to as many as 15,000 homes and businesses. Once Phase I is completed, the project will expand to include tens of thousands of other homes and businesses in the area. UTOPIA was founded to rapidly improve business and residential telecommunications services throughout Utah by providing a publicly owned core fiber infrastructure over which retail telecom can be delivered. UTOPIA will wholesale fiber-network capacity to service providers, delivering 100/1,000-Mbit/sec edge connectivity through a 5.6-Tbyte core switched network fabric.
C-COR.net (State College, PA) signed an agreement with Alloptic (Livermore, CA) giving C-COR exclusive rights to market fiber to the premises systems that incorporate Alloptic's passive-optical-network technology to cable TV multiple system operators in the United States and certain other countries as well as other selected domestic and international market segments. C-COR will use the Alloptic technology as part of its FTT maX offering.
Cisco Systems (San Jose, CA) will supply the Cisco 12000 series router platform to Verizon Communications (New York City) to support the carrier's national IP virtual-private-network (VPN) offerings. The Cisco system will be part of Verizon's expanded network to deliver Layer 3 IP/MPLS VPNs to Verizon's enterprise customers. It will be deployed as Verizon's local access transport area (LATA) core router as well as one of the service edge-router platforms for Verizon's Enterprise Advance initiative.
The Motorola Broadband Communications Sector (Horsham, PA) formed a strategic relationship with Movaz Networks (Norcross, GA) to provide DWDM transport and optical service delivery solutions for telecommunications and broadband cable network operators. Motorola will market Movaz's RAY product suite as the Motorola Multi-service Wavelength Transport (MWT) family of products to Motorola's customers worldwide. Motorola and Movaz also plan to collaborate on joint development activities to further expand the MWT portfolio.
Coriolis Networks (Boxboro, MA) reveals that D&E Communications (Ephrata, PA), a provider of integrated communications services in central and eastern Pennsylvania, is deploying Coriolis's OptiFlow Network platform as part of its Ethernet MAN solution for Lancaster General Hospital. D&E is using the Coriolis platform to deliver Gigabit Ethernet and 10/100Base-T Ethernet connections to multiple locations in the Lancaster area. The carrier has deployed the Coriolis OptiFlow 3000 hub unit and a number of OptiFlow 1015 service units in an OC-48 access ring.
SBG Labs (Sunnyvale, CA) acquired all DigiLens patents and trademarks through an open bid foreclosure sale held by a syndicate of DigiLens' secured lenders. DigiLens was a developer of optical components based on electrically switchable Bragg gratings. SBG Labs now plans to offer display products and services under the DigiLens trademark.
Pembroke Telephone (Pembroke, GA), an independent operating company, successfully deployed FiberDirect equipment from Advanced Fibre Communications (Petaluma, CA) to support a fiber to the premises network. Implementation of a FiberDirect architecture involves the addition of a plug-in card to an AccessMAX shelf, thus creating an optical line terminal. Pembroke is expanding its fiber-fed network to serve more than 4,000 customer lines throughout the northern half of Bryan County, GA. The carrier hopes to extend video services to all its customers by the end of next year.
OnFiber (Austin, TX), provider of metro optical services to service-provider and enterprise customers, will use equipment from fSONA Communications (Vancouver, British Columbia) to provide optical wireless options for its customers. OnFiber will use fSONA's SONAbeam optical wireless technology as part of its offerings.
QLogic (Aliso Viejo, CA) chose the Intel (Santa Clara, CA) TXN17209 Multi-Mode XPAK optical transceiver to provide 10-Gbit/sec connectivity for the QLogic SANbox 5200. The SANbox 5200 stackable switch is a 20-port Fibre Channel switch that features 16 ports running at 2 Gbits/sec and four ports running at 10 Gbits/sec in a 1U form factor. The four 10-Gbit/sec ports will use the TXN17209 optical transceivers to provide a high-speed uplink of aggregated 2-Gbit/sec data streams.
K2 Optronics (Sunnyvale, CA) and Fabrinet (Bangkok, Thailand) signed a strategic agreement whereby Fabrinet will manufacture K2's EC-48 2.5-Gbit/sec directly modulated DWDM external-cavity lasers with up to 650-km reach.
LightCore (Chesterfield, MO), a regional fiber-optic transport provider in the central United States, completed a major network expansion into Texas and Louisiana. The new fiber-optic ring connects LightCore's existing networks to major telecommunications hubs in Dallas and provides access to a number of smaller cities in Arkansas, Texas, and Louisiana. This latest network expansion adds 800 route-mi of long-haul and metro fiber and brings LightCore's total lit and unlit network to more than 7,000 mi covering 11 states.
Emcore (Somerset, NJ) acquired Molex's 10-Gigabit Ethernet (10-GbE) transceiver business, including the LX4 product. The transaction includes assets, products, technology, and intellectual property related to Molex's 10-GbE transceiver business, which is primarily focused on XENPAK and X2 form-factor devices, and is currently located in Downers Grove, IL. About 17 Molex employees will join Emcore. The business will become a part of Emcore's Fiber Optics division and initially continue to operate in a portion of Molex's Downers Grove facility to be leased by Emcore.
LightRiver Technologies (Lafayette, CA), a Lucent Business Partner, won contracts to deploy Lucent Technologies (Murray Hill, NJ) optical-networking systems at Telemark Networks. Telemark contracted LightSpeed Technologies, LightRiver's East Coast sales partner, to help design and deploy a new metro optical network to close a large span between New Jersey, upstate New York, and Manhattan. Telemark installed Metropolis DMX gear in the network expansion.
LVL7 Systems (Morrisville, NC), provider of merchant intellectual property software for Layer 2, 3, and 4 enterprise, access, wireless, and metro Ethernet products, secured $15.8 million in an oversubscribed Series B funding round. The funding was led by Carlyle Venture Partners, the venture arm of the Carlyle Group. The financing round included previous investors Gabriel Ventures Partners, H.I.G. Ventures, and Research Triangle Ventures.
The Metro Ethernet Forum (MEF) ratified a new standard, MEF Technical Specification - Ethernet Services Model Phase 1. The standard provides a formal definition of Ethernet service capabilities, plus the conceptual tools to assist service providers in modeling point-to-point and multipoint-to-multipoint Ethernet services through a standard framework of service attributes and parameters. The standard will be accompanied by a companion Services Definitions specification. For more information, visit www.metroethernetforum.org.
The Optical Internetworking Forum (OIF) published a TDM Fabric to Framer Interface Implementation Agreement (IA). Known as TFI-5, the IA is intended to allow framer and switch components from multiple vendors to interoperate. It defines support for such functions as link integrity monitoring, connection management, and mapping mechanisms for SONET/SDH and non-SONET/SDH clients, such as Ethernet and Fibre Channel. TFI-5 is intended for use in TDM applications compared to the previously released SPI-5, which is targeted at packet/cell applications.
Xponent Photonics (Monrovia, CA) closed its Series C financing with $18 million in new capital. Investors included El Dorado Ventures, Morgenthaler Ventures, U.S. Venture Partners, and Walden International. The financing will be used to fund product development, sales, and marketing. Xponent's Surface Mount Photonics products are based on what the company terms "fundamental packaging breakthroughs" that bring semiconductor assembly economics to the optical industry.
FLAG Telecom Group (London), provider of international wholesale network transport and communications services, entered into an agreement and plan of amalgamation with Reliance Gateway Net Private Ltd., a wholly owned subsidiary of Reliance Infocomm (Navi Mumbai, India), whereby Reliance Gateway will acquire 100% of the company's common shares on a fully diluted basis. The aggregate purchase price is $207 million, reflecting a per share price of $95.61. Reliance Infocomm is part of the Reliance Group, India's largest business house, with total revenues of $16.8 billion.
Bookham Technology (Oxford, UK) purchased Palomar's (Vista, CA) Laser Diode Assembly Cell to complement its automated equipment resources used for precision volume manufacturing and new-product development at its facility in Paignton, South Devin, UK.
Transmode Systems (Stockholm), supplier of transmission equipment for fiber-optic networks, has closed an additional $10-million round of funding, led by Pod Holding. Existing investors Amadeus Capital Partners and European Equity Partners also participated in the round. The financing round was completed in October, with a major share carried by Pod Holding, bringing the total funds collected to $28 million since 2000.
Deutsche Telekom's systems house, T-Systems International (Bonn, Germany) selected Lucent Technologies (Murray Hill, NJ) to increase the capacity of the North American element of its international network (Telekom Global Net), which connects the largest economic centers of Europe, North America, and Asia. Lucent will provide T-Systems with its LambdaUnite MultiService Switch, a next-generation optical transport system and switch with an element capacity of 320 Gbits/sec.
AMS Technologies (Martinsried, Germany), distributor of electronic and optoelectronic components and systems, agreed to a distribution deal with OZ Optics (Kanata, Ontario). AMS says the deal will increase the quality of its fiber-optic product portfolio. The OZ range comprises fiber-coupling systems, attenuators, meters, and optical subcomponents such as fiber tapers and V-channel arrays. OZ also offers fiber-optic metrology instruments for laboratory and production applications.
Lantern Communications (Sunnyvale, CA) signed an agreement with Network Value Components (NVC—Kanagawa, Japan) to distribute Lantern's flagship product, the Metro Packet Switch. NVC is a telecom value-added reseller (VAR) that consults and supplies equipment to local exchange carriers and other service providers. As a Lantern VAR, NVC will market, sell, and distribute Lantern's products in Japan and Asia-Pacific.
Xtellus (Morris Plains, NJ), maker of optical modules and components for reconfigurable optical networks, and Nissho Electronics, a Japanese IT and telecommunications system integrator, announced an agreement by which Nissho will represent and distribute Xtellus's products in Japan. Nissho has already begun sampling Xtellus's Dynamic Blocker Equalizer with Japanese telecom-system suppliers.
Koncent Communication (Fuzhou, China), a PHOTOP company, received a U.S. patent with Pub. App. No. 20020186914 for a four-port bidirectional circulator. The patent generally applies to optical communications systems. Koncent calls the patent "significant" for the company. The patent describes a technology developed to provide an improved design for manufacturing a compact and economical fiber-optic circulator. The company believes the resulting device will achieve low crosstalk, high extinction ratio, and high isolation, while maintaining a competitive price.
Corrigent Systems (San Jose, CA), provider of packet-add/drop-multiplexer (ADM) transport systems for metropolitan networks, expanded its sales operations in the Japanese market with the opening of an office in Tokyo. The expanding operations reflect growing interest in packet-ADM products in this region of Asia-Pacific. Akio Ogiso, country manager, who was previously with Lucent Japan as managing director, heads the new office.
DenseLight Semiconductors Private Ltd. (Singapore) announced its entry into the passive-optical-network component market. Product development has concentrated on the manufacturability of integrated optical and RF bidirectional components. The company expects to release prototype results on this development effort in the near future.
Alloptic (Livermore, CA) delivered its GigaForce Ethernet passive-optical-network system to Bright Telecommunications (Perth, Australia) for a fiber to the home network deployed in the city's Victoria Park neighborhood. The new system provides a bundle of TV, Internet, and telephone services that Alloptic says exceed the current service offerings from incumbent service providers with minimal changes within a subscriber's residence. The new network infrastructure is accessible to both incumbent and new service providers and will allow Bright to develop business opportunities as a provider of content to business and residential subscribers.