As part of its DWDM network expansion strategy, MCI (Ashburn, VA) deployed ultra-long-haul (ULH) technology on 3,129 route-mi of its fiber-optic network, with routes including New York City to Cleveland, Chicago to Denver (via Omaha), and Salt Lake City to Los Angeles (via Sacramento). The company expects the ULH deployment, which gives the network OC-768 capacity, to enable faster adoption of Web services, grid computing, and storage networking as well as better monitoring and provisioning of services. The company’s multiyear ULH expansion strategy projects an eventual deployment of 32,000 mi nationwide.
ADC (Minneapolis) and Corning Cable Systems (Corning, NY) entered into a technology transfer agreement regarding Corning’s OptiTap line, allowing both companies to manufacture the environmentally hardened connectors and adapters designed for use in FTTX drop cable deployments. ADC elected to pursue the formal agreement to ensure full compatibility between the two companies’ products.
Fiber Optic Network Solutions (FONS-Marlborough, MA), manufacturer of optical connectivity products, announced selection of its Pathways platform by Cinergy MetroNet (CMN-Orem, Utah), a broadband services provider, to provide FTTP connectivity in the construction of a dedicated broadband network for rural communities. The deployment is expected to extend bundled urban-quality communications and entertainment services to an aggregate rural population of 147,613.
Optical Solutions (Minneapolis), developer of GPON networks, announced that Consolidated Telecommunications Co. (CTC) of Northern Minnesota will deploy the company’s FiberPath 500 GPON access platform as part of a competitive build-out to 15,000 potential customers in Brainerd, Baxter, and Nisswa. Optical also announced that Tamarack Resort, located 90 miles north of Boise, ID, is deploying a fiber-optic communications and entertainment network using its GPON FiberPath system. The resort will eventually harbor more than 2,000 dwelling units.
The LX4 Trade Group, founded last October by Emcore (Somerset, NJ), MergeOptics (Berlin, Germany), Opnext (Eatontown, NJ), Quake Technologies (Kanata, Ontario), and Wavesplitter Technologies (Santa Clara, CA) will add five new members: BeamExpress (Sunnyvale, CA and Lausanne, Switzerland), Mitsubishi Electric (Cypress, CA), Mysticom Semiconductor (Netanya, Israel), O-Net Communications (Shenzhen, China), and 4Wave (Sterling, VA). All members participate in the LX4 industry segment by providing 10GBase-LX4 modules or key XENPAK or X2 subcomponents.
SBC Communications (San Antonio, TX) announced a contract with KeyCorp (Cleveland), a bank-based financial services company. In addition to renewing existing core local services, SBC will now provide KeyCorp with a multiservice optical-network (MON) ring to include a SONET dedicated to OC-48 ring and OC-192 point-to-point and multiple Gigabit Ethernet and Fibre Channel circuits.
Lumentis (Stockholm), provider of fiber-optic equipment, signed a long-term contract with BaneTele (Norway), a broadband services and telecommunications carrier. The carrier will use the Swedish company’s Mentis optical transmission equipment to supply broadband services to universities and colleges in Norway as well as deploy infrastructure in other regional projects. Also, Baltcom Fiber (Latvia) has selected Lumentis for a 2.5-Gbit/sec submarine data transmission link to support commercial Internet and voice traffic and secure future expansion in the region. Baltcom chose system integrator Santa Monica Networks (Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia) for implementation and infrastructure support.
French carrier Neuf Telecom (Paris) increased the backbone capacity of its 20,000-km fiber-optic network to support a large-scale rollout of DSL services throughout the country. The expanded network will operate at speeds up to 10 Gbits/sec, enabling the carrier to provide high-speed triple play services ranging from 512 kbits/sec to 8 Mbits/sec. Providers included Cisco Systems (San Jose, CA) and Huawei (Shenzhen, China)for IP equipment, France’s SAGEM for SDH equipment, and ADVA Optical Networking (Munich, Germany) for WDM equipment.
The Sea-Me-We 3 consortium awarded Fujitsu (Japan) a multimillion-dollar contract to deploy its Flashwave S650 submarine transmission equipment. The project, scheduled for completion by the end of this year, will upgrade the consortium’s current cable-system infrastructure and expand its submarine-network capacity to 10 Gbits/sec without changing the undersea plant. At 38,000 km, the Sea-Me-We 3 system is the world’s longest intercontinental submarine-cable network, consisting of 10 segments connecting 39 landing points across Northern Europe, Asia, and Australia. Fujitsu will upgrade landing points in Portugal, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Cyprus, Egypt, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, India, and China.
China Netcom (CNC-Shanghai) announced completion of the first stage of its GPON deployment using FlexLight Networks’ (Atlanta) modular Optimate platform. CNC used the platform to converge the delivery of voice, data, and video as part of a year-long project linking 15 cities in the northern part of the country. Plans are set to connect six more cities in the upcoming months.
Ciena’s (Linthicum, MD) CoreDirector multiservice switching system has been selected for expanded deployment by Mexico’s nationwide telecommunications provider, Teléfonos de México (Telmex). The expansion will enable a single automated infrastructure for the provider’s metro and long-distance networks. CoreDirector currently services Telmex’s Mexico City MAN.