Ekinops debuts high-density optical transport/DWDM platform

JUNE 19, 2007 -- France-based optical transport and aggregation systems provider Ekinops (search for Ekinops) today debuted a powerful new optical transport platform, the Ekinops 360, at NXTcomm in Chicago.

The Ekinops 360 is a carrier-class optical transport platform designed for metro, regional, and long-haul CWDM and DWDM networks. The platform can aggregate or transport any Ethernet, Fibre Channel, SONET, or SDH client protocol from 100 Mbits/sec to 10 Gbits/sec. The company says the platform is designed to address the need to transport video, backhaul broadband and wireless traffic, and support growing demand for Ethernet services.

Capable of supporting 40 DWDM channels at 10 Gbits/sec today, and designed to grow to 80 channels and support 40-Gbit rates, the Ekinops 360 consists of a 6-RU chassis for high-density applications and a compact 2-RU chassis for lower-density needs. The high-density, modular system supports up to 400G over each fiber.

The platform allows for long-haul fiber spans at a fraction of the cost, size, and complexity of other CWDM and DWDM systems, the company says. It combines a compact and powerful WDM shelf suitable for transporting and aggregating traffic at edge locations and a larger shelf with capacity and density to handle core sites and large data centers. It includes optical multiplexers, optical add/drop multiplexers, and optical amplifiers.

The Ekinops 360 aggregates multiple inputs over one wavelength at wire speed. This includes aggregation of multiple 100-Mbit/sec, Gigabit Ethernet, Fibre Channel 1G/2G, OC-3/12/48, and STM-1/4/16 onto a standard 10G ITU-T G.709-compatible line rate. Client inputs are encapsulated together with a digital wrapper, which also contains a data communications channel and optional forward error correction. Aggregation reduces the number of wavelengths in the network and lowers the overall cost of DWDM and CWDM networks by 30% to 50%, according to Ekinops.

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