Zhone adds active Ethernet option
Zhone Technologies introduced active Ethernet equipment to its access portfolio today, adding active Ethernet modules to its access platform as well as new customer premises gear, giving carriers the option of high-speed broadband over point-to-point fiber....
ECI unveils MPLS-based Ethernet platform
ECI Telecom today introduced a suite of carrier Ethernet gear spanning from metro core networks to customer premises....
More PBT control planes coming soon
By: Ed Gubbins
Though Soapstone Networks took the lead in addressing the market for a control plane to manage Provider Backbone Transport (PBT) networks, it won’t be alone for long. ...
Intelliden beefs up network policy management
By: Rich Karpinski
Intelliden today released a new version of its platform for enabling policy-based management of IP networks, aiming to further automate and simplify how carriers implement and manage complex network policies....
Nortel takes novel approach to 40G, 100G
By: By Ed Gubbins
Nortel Networks introduced new equipment today allowing carriers to migrate from 10 Gb/s links to 40 Gb/s and eventually 100 Gb/s. A key aspect of the new gear is its ability to enable these migrations while maintaining the characteristics of the existing network—something Nortel achieved through a novel approach that applies wireless technology to optical networks...
Extreme beefs up PBT
Extreme Networks made a string announcements today aimed at enabling broader deployment of Provider Backbone Transport (PBT) technology, the connection-oriented Ethernet transport technology championed by Nortel Networks and others....
Verizon builds 18-city optical mesh
Verizon Business will deploy a combination of optical mesh networking gear and reconfigurable optical add/drop multiplexers (ROADMs) across the US this year that the carrier expects will radically change its network provisioning processes by allowing far more automation and efficiency....
Why Ciena sees an even brighter year ahead
By: By Ed Gubbins
Ciena continues to benefit from a booming optical market, raising its annual revenue expectations today after a successful 2007. But the company said it’s also taking advantage of the difficulties rival vendors are having in integrating mergers and acquisitions...
Verizon strives to automate fiber patch panels
By: By Ed Gubbins
Verizon Business is testing various ways to remotely reconfigure patch panels--the thousands of short fiber connections between transport, switching and outside plant equipment in every central office. And a small group of innovative equipment vendors are offering a range of options for doing just that...
Verizon Business certifies Overture gear
By: By Carol Wilson
Ethernet access gear-maker Overture Networks today announced that its equipment has been certified by Verizon Business, enabling Overture gear to be installed at customer premises and Verizon co-location sites in order to deliver Ethernet services over copper and fiber lines...
OFC: 40G, 100G debates die down
By: By Ed Gubbins
SAN DIEGO--Like last year, the evolution of 40-Gb/s and 100-Gb/s optical technology was a prominent topic at the OFC NFOEC show. But unlike last year, there is more agreement today about the timing of those technologies’ deployment in carrier networks....
OFC: Why optical components are ripe for recovery (really)
By: By Ed Gubbins
SAN DIEGO--At the OFC NFOEC show, familiar lamentations of an overcrowded and unprofitable components and modules sector dampened the mood among attendees. But to at least one Wall Street analyst, this dour sector suddenly seems ripe for investment...
Pannaway adds GPON, 10 Gig Ethernet to access platform
By: Rich Karpinski
OFC: Verizon details plans to bring fiber to larger MDUs
By: By Ed Gubbins
SAN DIEGO--Verizon Communications is planning a major push of its fiber-to-the-home service into multidwelling units (MDUs) this year. Despite passing 2.1 million MDUs at the end of last year’s third quarter, Verizon’s FTTH network was only capable of serving 400,000 of them. The company’s technology director, Vincent O’Byrne, spoke with Telephony’s Ed Gubbins at the OFC show in San Diego this week about Verizon’s plans for MDUs this year....
OFC: Terabit Ethernet requires network overhaul
By: By Ed Gubbins
SAN DIEGO--Terabit Ethernet networks are coming, said Bob Metcalfe, a partner at Polaris Ventures who is credited with having invented Ethernet more than 35 years ago. But it’s not clear exactly when, he said. And it’s less clear what network architectures will be needed to enable them...
OFC: Qwest CTO maps optical’s future
By: By Ed Gubbins
SAN DIEGO--Pieter Poll, Qwest Communications’ chief technology officer, described some of the innovations critical to the future of optical networks, but he also identified hurdles to the commercial implementation of those innovations in a speech at the OFC NFOEC show today...
Comptel: Hatteras lands another NW CLEC
By: By Carol Wilson
NASHVILLE--For a North Carolina company, Hatteras Networks is getting quite a reputation in the Pacific Northwest. The Ethernet-over-copper gear maker today announced its fifth CLEC customer in that region in Quantum Communications, an Oregon-based local CLEC...
Comptel: Verizon to wholesale Integrated Optical Service
By: By Carol Wilson
NASHVILLE--Verizon Partner Solutions, the company’s wholesale arm, today announced a new Verizon Integrated Optical Service that incorporates ROADM capabilities into nodes or access points to enable a much wider variety of service offerings from a single point...
Juniper offers external control plane
By: Ed Gubbins
What comes after GPON?
By: By Ed Gubbins
With Verizon ramping up deployment of gigabit passive optical networks this year, work is already well under way to develop successors to GPON. David Foote, chief technology officer for Hitachi Telecom USA, gave Telephony a view into that process...
Occam GPON gear coming in Q2
By: By Ed Gubbins
Occam Networks plans to start shipping its first gigabit passive optical networking (GPON) gear in the second quarter, benefiting from an acquisition it made last year...
ECI adds Sonet to packet optical play
By: By Ed Gubbins
ECI Telecom is adding its ante to the North American packet optical networking space. The Israeli equipment vendor today announced a Sonet-based version of its XDM 300 optical platform for the North American market...
Ekinops adds GigE rings to optical transport
By: By Ed Gubbins
Ekinops is beefing up its optical transport platform with ring-based Ethernet capabilities as the French vendor works toward a larger presence in the United States...
Mushroom Networks launches broadband-bonding CPE
By: By Ed Gubbins
A new broadband access equipment vendor making its public launch today promises to boost broadband speeds by bonding access lines of various types—including T-1, DSL, cable broadband and satellite...
In the spotlight: Brian Rose of Cox Communications
By: By Carol Wilson
Brian Rose joined Cox Communications as product development manager after seven years with BellSouth and has found selling Ethernet services can be more fun when you aren’t cannibalizing your existing base of data services. Just after the Vertical Systems Group report credited Cox with fourth place nationally in the sales of Ethernet ports with 10% of the market, Rose spoke with Editor-in-Chief Carol Wilson...
