Transmode has announced it will offer 100-Gbps capabilities on its metro and regional TM-Series systems based on dual-polarization quadrature phase-shift keying (DP-QPSK) with coherent detection. The systems should be ready for customer trials early next year, with deployments to follow by mid-year, according to Transmode.
The company will offer the coherent 100-Gbps capabilities as a “plug-in unit” for the TM-Series. The unit will feature a common host-board and application specific plug-in daughter boards on the client side that can configure the unit as a transponder, muxponder, or regenerator, Transmode says.
"To optimize price/performance for the metro and regional markets, our approach has been to focus on standard 100G optical technology and a solution for distances up to 750 km. In parallel, we will also provide a version for distances up to 1500 km based on the same technology to cover the wider market," said Sten Nordell, Transmode's CTO. "Our approach allows us to create a solution that provides investment protection for existing customers and is cost-effective when adding anything from a small number of 100G wavelengths to existing 10G/40G networks right up to a fully loaded 100G system that enables 8 Tbps of traffic on a fiber pair. In addition, the solution is highly compact and uses only 75% of the space required for the current generation of 100G systems. All of which make this solution ideally focused on metro and regional applications."
"We set ourselves the challenge of rethinking 100G from a metro and regional perspective," added Karl Thedéen, Transmode's CEO. "We needed to ensure that the approach we took to 100G integration was the best for our existing customer base and was very attractive to prospective customers. These networks require a standards based, cost-effective, and compact solution that works on existing infrastructure including advanced ROADM-based networks. Customers also require a simple pay-as-you-grow approach to adding 100G."
Transmode’s coherent-based approach for the metro contrasts with ADVA Optical Networking’s recent announcement that it would offer metro 100-Gbps capabilities via a 4x28G strategy (see “ADVA Optical Networking offers cost-reduced 100-Gbps for metro networks”). Ciena has indicated that it plans to base its 100-Gbps metro offering on coherent technology, leveraging its WaveLogic processor.
"The optical networking industry is rapidly moving towards 100G solutions for high-capacity networking options, although the vast majority of these solutions and initial deployments are primarily targeted towards core network applications," said Andrew Schmitt, directing analyst, optical at Infonetics Research. "We predict that these core networks will quickly move to predominantly 100G once the technology reaches the right price points. However, we also predict that metro and regional networks will gradually migrate to a 10G/40G/100G mix, creating a totally different set of challenges for the network operators."
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