Lucent Technologies has struck a partnership with Novera Optics this week wherein Lucent’s services arm will sell, integrate and support Novera’s wavelength-division multiplexing passive optical networking (WDM-PON) gear in Japan.

WDM-PON, which delivers a wavelength to each user, is viewed by many as a higher-bandwidth, next generation of PON, expected to follow the GPON gear currently being deployed in the U.S.

As a start-up, Novera will benefit from Lucent’s greater scale and reach, said Ken Twist, Ovum-RHK’s vice president of technology consulting and broadband networks. “However, the partnership still faces many challenges, as Lucent does not have a whole lot of wireline activity in Japan. One challenge will be Lucent’s lack of an installed base from which to leverage and identify emerging opportunities.”

The partnership also gives Lucent more experience with PON in the world’s biggest market for it, Japan. Lucent did not have its own PON product until it introduced its Multimedia Access Platform nearly a year ago.

Alcatel, with which Lucent is merging this year, supplies PON gear to AT&T and Verizon Communications, among others. But it does not offer WDM-PON. Lucent’s experience with WDM-PON could therefore potentially benefit Alcatel after the merger by adding to its access expertise and by helping it penetrate the Japanese access market just as Japanese vendors such as Hitachi Telecom USA are attempting to penetrate the U.S.

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