ANAHIEM--Lambda Optical Systems introduced a new all-optical crossconnect today focused on 40 Gb/s wavelengths.

The new LambdaNode 3000 has 128 ports, each capable of handling traffic at 40 Gb/s. Like its 10-Gb/s predecessor, the LambdaNode 2000, the 3000 is based on microelectical mechanical systems (MEMS), the tiny tilting mirrors that switch wavelengths without converting them into electrons and back, the way legacy crossconnects do.

Those legacy crossconnects and their expensive OEO conversions can’t cost effectively make the jump to 40-Gb/s networks, said Irfan Ali, Lambda Optical’s chief executive officer. “While electronic crossconnects might be able to move with some effort to 10 Gb/s, they can’t move to 40 Gb/s. The economics change. The whole system falls apart.”

A three-year-old startup with 40 employees and about $43 million in funding, Lambda Optical does not currently have a large vendor partner for the U.S. carrier market. Domestically, the 3000 is aimed more at clients in the federal government than in the carrier market, Ali said. But in Japan, for example, carriers are more interested.

The new box is currently in trials, with general availability expected by the middle of this year.