Fujitsu enhances Flashwave 7500 ROADM platform with WSS optical fabric, SFPs

April 6, 2005
April 6, 2005 Richardson, TX -- Fujitsu has announced the availability of several significant, "generation-skipping" advancements to its Flashwave 7500 Reconfigurable Optical Add/Drop Multiplexer (ROADM), including a Wavelength Selective Switch (WSS) optical switch fabric, full 40-channel C-band tunable narrowband optics, Small Form-factor Pluggable (SFP) interfaces, multi-port and multi-rate SONET Flexponder interface cards, and an intelligent control plane.

April 6, 2005 Richardson, TX -- Fujitsu has announced the availability of several significant, "generation-skipping" advancements to its Flashwave 7500 Reconfigurable Optical Add/Drop Multiplexer (ROADM), including a Wavelength Selective Switch (WSS) optical switch fabric, full 40-channel C-band tunable narrowband optics, Small Form-factor Pluggable (SFP) interfaces, multi-port and multi-rate SONET Flexponder interface cards, and an intelligent control plane.

According to the company, the platform's WSS-based optical core delivers among the most advanced wavelength routing and topology migration capabilities available, positioning the company at least one year ahead of its nearest competitive rivals. The company says the switch fabric provides the platform with the flexibility to meet rapidly changing service and traffic patterns by allowing any wavelength, and any number of wavelengths, to be added, dropped, or optically passed through at any network node. WSS technology allows multiple DWDM rings to be terminated in a single ROADMs multi-degree hub node, and supports traffic grooming across multiple networks.

According to the company, optical hubbing of multiple DWDM networks results in substantial cost savings by eliminating unnecessary intermediate transponders; as well as substantial operational savings at aggregation sites by eliminating manual, per-wavelength fiber interconnections that often result in difficulties in other DWDM systems. The company says its WSS technology also exhibits a lower power loss than other optical switch technologies, which enables larger network sizes and support for additional optical nodes per network. Lower optical power loss reduces the need for costly regenerators in longer spans, which can result in a capital savings of up to 50% per network over previous-generation platforms, according to the company.

The company says its advanced optical line cards deliver key business services such as Video on Demand (VOD), residential high-speed Internet access, and enterprise data services across metro and regional networks that span up to 1000 km. Also, the company says that by using SFP interfaces and full C-band tunable narrowband optics, a minimal number of multi-function transponder types are needed to support a wide array of SONET, SDH, Ethernet, storage and video services from 100 Mbit/sec to 10 Gbit/sec. Muxponders enable multiple OC-48 or Gigabit Ethernet connections to be multiplexed onto a single wavelength at 10 Gbit/sec. According to the company, its Flexponder interface cards converge the functionality of a SONET ADM with DWDM, with full support for protection, traffic grooming, and Performance Monitoring (PM) features.

"This release is significant for our industry because it enables widespread deployment of metro DWDM, and allows telecom, wireless, and cable television providers to create a fully-converged metro/regional transport network for their voice, video and data needs," contends Bill Erickson, senior vice president of sales and marketing for Fujitsu Network Communications. "Our solution integrates SONET, DWDM and packet technology onto a single platform that makes direct IP over-wavelength networks possible. Plus, no amplifier or network changes will be required when 40 Gbit/sec interfaces are added in the future."

According to the company, its Flashwave 7500 ROADM leverages standards-based intelligent control plane protocols to perform automatic network topology discovery and end-to-end lightpath circuit tracking and identification, which helps field technicians rapidly see and troubleshoot equipment or lightpath issues. The platform also functions as a unified operations gateway for the subtending SONET/MSPP network, allowing dozens of SONET, MSPP and ROADM nodes to be managed from a single point. The company says the platform's remote software provisioning and patented self-tuning amplifiers enable rapid service activation, while eliminating time-consuming, manual adjustments at every site for the addition/removal of new lightpaths.

End-to-end network management and operations of the company's converged SONET and DWDM transport network is provided by its NetSmart1500 Element Management System (EMS) and NetSmart 500 craft user interface. Both products feature a similar and intuitive Graphical User Interface (GUI) that provides point-and-click operation. To assist customers with network design and planning with the Flashwave 7500 ROADM, the company has also launched its NetSmart 2000 network planning tool, with which customers can design a variety of network topologies and predict system performance under different traffic scenarios. With the tool, network planners can also share network designs with each other, as well as track changes and fine-tune any design, reducing time-to-market in strategic design processes, and increasing equipment usage and network design productivity.

According to RHK, an independent telecom research and advisory service firm, the company has a 75% share of the global metro ROADM market, and an 83% share of the North American ROADM market.

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