May 16, 2006 Clearwater, FL -- Digital Lightwave, Inc. announced the shipment of Network Information Computer (NIC) test instruments equipped with jitter and wander testing from 1.5 Mbits/sec to 10.7 Gbits/sec. The instruments were shipped to "a major telecommunications equipment manufacturer in Asia."
Digital Lightwave asserts the NIC Plus is the industry's first portable test instrument that supports jitter and wander testing at all the following data rates: 1.5 Mbits/sec, 2 Mbits/sec, 34 Mbits/sec, 45 Mbits/sec, 51 Mbits/sec, 139 Mbits/sec, 155 Mbits/sec, 622 Mbits/sec, 2.5 Gbits/sec, 2.66 Gbits/sec, 9.953 Gbits/sec, and 10.7 Gbits/sec. The NIC Plus units support testing of PDH interfaces (DS1, E1, E3, DS3, E4), SONET/SDH interfaces (OC-1/3/12/48/192, STM-0/1/4/16/48), and OTN interfaces (OTU-1, OTU-2) and can be upgraded to support next-generation SONET/SDH (VCAT, LCAS, and GFP).
The NIC products are used to verify global communications standards in compliance with the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) O.172 standard. The NIC, optioned with jitter and wander, will perform intrinsic jitter measurement, jitter tolerance, and jitter transfer tests as well as industry-standard wander analysis.
Jitter and wander testing is used to detect flaws and inconsistencies in timing systems that would hamper the ability to transport information at high data rates. Jitter can be caused by a number of different sources in the network and the effects are cumulative, leading to a decreased system margin and making the equipment more susceptible to errors. Wander relates to clock stability and is an important consideration in synchronous networks. Applications for jitter and wander testing include equipment design, manufacturing test, field implementation, and maintenance, covering the full customer base of NIC products.