18 November 2003 Stockholm Lightwave - Lumentis' Mentis optical transport platform has been successfully deployed by telecom operator Fibranet SA to connect the major cities of El Salvador and Guatemala with the ARCOS Network.
Fibranet is using the DWDM component in the Mentis platform to provide 2.5-Gbit/sec wavelengths over a 526-km long regional network from Puerto Barrios in Guatemala, one of the landing points of ARCOS, up to Guatemala City and San Salvador. The fiber links vary in distance from 96 km to 160 km.
"By selecting the best optical transport partner for this project, Lumentis, we were able to build the initial capacity needed for our customers' high-bandwidth services," says Angel Menendez, director of Fibranet. "Lumentis' network solution fits our demand for flexible and fast expansion of the network when traffic is increasing."
By deploying Lumentis' platform Fibranet will be able to adapt their network to higher capacity and changes in topology. The Mentis system enables both CWDM and DWDM transport technology as well as 10-Gbit/sec applications within the same box, same fiber pair and same management application. This enables Fibranet to combine the implementation of regional DWDM application with local CWDM connections within the same system. This reduces equipment and operational costs, removes overhead costs and simplifies network growth plans.
"Our solution offers Fibranet the lowest cost of ownership as well as a future-proof concept for adding more capacity regionally as well as locally in the metro," says Pär Johanson, director of marketing and sales at Lumentis. "We see this region of the world as an interesting market for our products and the Fibranet network provides an excellent reference for us."
Fibranet SA was formed in 2001, to construct the fiber-optic backhaul systems in the region to interconnect the ARCOS-1 ring system with major metro markets in Central America. The fiber network built by Fibranet SA serves various telecom operators providing long distance calling, voice over IP, Internet, data and video conferencing services across the region.