Ekinops says it has supplied its Ekinops 360 platform to The Keystone Initiative for Network Based Education and Research (KINBER) in Pennsylvania. KINBER has used the systems to establish a pair of 100-Gbps on its PennREN fiber network backbone.

KINBER uses PennREN to provides network connectivity and IP, Ethernet, and wavelength services to more than 80 organizations in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The group owns and operates more than 1,800 miles of fiber-optic network infrastructure with access points in 47 of the 67 counties in the commonwealth.

The two new 100-Gbps connections include a span of 166 miles and one of 609 miles within PennREN's East Ring. The 100G capabilities were added to an existing ROADM infrastructure (see, potentially, "ADVA Optical Networking, Juniper Networks to supply KINBER R&E network") and enables 100G transmission alongside existing 10G traffic with a round-trip latency of 11 ms, according to Ekinops. The links enable high-speed service provision from Scranton to Pittsburgh, Erie to Philadelphia, or any city in-between throughout the commonwealth, the systems house adds.

Use of the Ekinops 360 not only provided greater transmission capacity but also eliminated three regeneration sites, the company adds.

"It was critical to us to not only implement a network with far more capacity, but to do it quickly and make sure there would be no interruption in service to our users," said Mike Carey, director of operations of KINBER. "We were very impressed with Ekinops' ability to deliver on its implementation and performance promises."

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