Aegis Lightwave acquires CardinalPoint Optics

APRIL 23, 2008 -- Aegis Lightwave (search for Aegis Lightwave), provider of optical monitoring equipment for the fiber-optics communications industry, today announced the acquisition of CardinalPoint Optics, an emerging vendor of next-generation optical channel monitors. Aegis says the acquisition augments its product portfolio with optical channel monitors featuring advanced capabilities and lays the foundation for a center of excellence in central New Jersey.

According to Aegis representatives, the combined product lines represent the most comprehensive offering of optical channel monitors on the market. The combined products exhibit a rich feature set available in various form factors, including embedded subsystems, standalone modules, portable instruments, and carrier-grade systems. The product suite will expand to include new advanced signal quality monitoring functions that will be necessary to realize the performance monitoring requirements of optical networks as they increase in capacity and flexibility while retaining their optical transparency.

"We continue to dedicate our company to addressing the complex challenges of optical performance monitoring that we envision in the future," contends Jeff Farmer, president and CEO, Aegis Lightwave. "Our customers will continue to benefit from product innovations coming out of our laboratories as they architect future generations of optical systems."

Aegis says it is the only company and the largest product design team exclusively dedicated to optical channel monitors. With several technology platforms now available, Aegis says it can provide each customer with a tailored offering for any application. Each technology platform delivers best-in-class performance at a cost that proves in the economics of distributed optical monitoring, claim company representatives.

"We are eager to build on Aegis' past and present successes with large-scale deployments of optical channel monitors in ROADM-based networks," adds Chris Koeppen, vice president and general manager, Aegis-NJ. "We plan to take optical monitoring technology to a new level with an exciting new series of products that will serve the needs of high-speed and optically-switched networks."

As electrical regeneration recedes from the transport layer, the requirements for monitoring signal integrity are migrating to the optical layer to maintain the crucial capabilities of fault management. Channel monitors will progressively take on a more prominent role in keeping optical systems user-friendly and manageable, as equipment vendors take on the optical design challenges ushered in by optical mesh network architectures and per-wavelength throughputs of up to 100 Gbits/sec and beyond.

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