AFCS Forum gathers to advance fiber connectivity, switching

June 18, 2008
JUNE 18, 2008 -- The AFCS Forum is expected to facilitate knowledge sharing and cross-industry dialogues in an open environment to increase industry awareness of optical switching and advanced fiber connectivity technologies.

JUNE 18, 2008 -- Service providers, optical switch vendors, network infrastructure providers, and manufacturers announced their collaboration this week in the creation of the Advanced Fiber Connectivity and Switching (AFCS) Forum, a group focused on accelerating the adoption and deployment of two emerging technologies for remote fiber management.

The AFCS Forum is expected to facilitate knowledge sharing and cross-industry dialogues in an open environment to increase industry awareness of optical switching and advanced fiber connectivity technologies.

The Forum's charter participants include Verizon, FiberZone Networks, Tyco Electronics, Draka, Telect Inc., CrossFiber, Telcordia Technologies Inc., Corning Cable Systems, Sumitomo Electric Lightwave, Calient Networks, Polatis, Boston Applied Technologies Inc., Ovum, NTest Inc., AT&T, KDDi R&D Laboratories Inc., Arcswitch, ADC, and Glimmerglass.

"Industry and region-wide, we've seen increased customer interest in bandwidth-intensive services, from voice over IP to high-definition TV," says David Rapp, member of AFCS Forum's board of directors. "With today's service providers driven to optical fiber solutions to deliver these services, it's an opportune time for a coordinated effort to educate the industry on the best practices and applications of these technologies."

The AFCS Forum will initially study the application of physical-layer switching and management tools to perform the following tasks remotely: fiber provisioning, fiber protection and restoration, and fiber test, monitoring, and troubleshooting. It will also work to resolve obstacles that stand in the way of remote fiber management technology deployments. This will include collaboration with industry standards bodies to identify needs for updated or new standards.

With fiber-optic networks enabling faster data transmissions, many carriers are turning to optical switching technologies to keep up with growing bandwidth demands. Operators upgrading their networks to accommodate the heavy load of data and video traffic will need reliable fiber management systems to minimize the impact on customer service.

"The AFCS Forum gathers a diverse set of companies involved in the deployment of next-generation networks, from the manufacturers developing the necessary fiber network equipment to carriers planning their infrastructure upgrades," explains Rapp. "Our collective knowledge will allow us to promote the promising possibilities of fiber networks for everyone in the telecom value chain."


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