XKL enhances its DarkStar DWDM product line

Feb. 12, 2024
The vendor adds high-power amplification, monitoring and equalization capabilities to enable providers to increase network reach.  

XKL is beefing up its DarkStar line of DWDM products with a range of new features targeting long-haul network opportunities. The company has added Raman amplification, dynamic equalization, and optical channel monitoring.

XKL’s 650mW dual-pump, Class 1M Raman amplifiers enable customers to extend reach to +300km distances when mid-span stages aren’t viable. Notably, the Class 1M designation ensures amplification safety and effectiveness without dedicated deployment training, bringing down barriers to advanced networking. 

Its improved amplifier chain, which offers dynamic equalization and optical channel monitoring, offers the benefit of vendor neutrality, integrating seamlessly with customers’ existing core network and eliminating operational disruption. This allows customers to monitor signal dynamics, identify performance fluctuations and optimize operational performance within their DWDM networks more effectively.

An additional benefit of the new upgrades is its no-license-fee network, which adds ease to cost forecasting and delivers low Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). As a result, XKL empowers customers to reduce strain on long-term planning while enjoying easier, more predictable network investment with no hidden costs. This advantage is particularly crucial in an era of unpredictable costs from cloud expenditure and other IT investments.

Chad Lamb, Chief Systems Architect at XKL, said the new product enhancements are designed to cut planning and cost complexity while offering more advantages for long-haul and local applications.

“XKL is here to prove that network deployment, expansion and management doesn’t have to be burdened by complex, larger-than-life solutions with inaccessible operational or financial models,” he said. “It really can be as easy and as right-sized as customers need it to be.”

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About the Author

Sean Buckley

Sean is responsible for establishing and executing the editorial strategies of Lightwave and Broadband Technology Report across their websites, email newsletters, events, and other information products.

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