Tag Archives: optical networks

Optical SDN Gets a Test Run

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Building an OTS boils down to adding two things to an optical transport box: a virtual switch and the software hooks to receive commands from OpenFlow or some similar protocol. Infinera outfitted its gear accordingly, and ESnet provided a home-built SDN controller to talk to it.

via Optical SDN Gets a Test Run – Optical Networking – Telecom News Analysis – Light Reading.

The OTS used in the tests is nowhere near commercial viability, both sides tell Light Reading. The software doesn’t have operational niceties such as alarms or debugging tools, for instance.

OTS=Optical Transport Switch

Quantum cryptography conquers noise problem

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Physicists have attempted to solve the problem by sending photons through a shared fibre along a ‘quantum channel’ at one characteristic wavelength. The trouble is that the fibre scatters light from the normal data traffic into that wavelength, polluting the quantum channel with stray photons. Andrew Shields, a physicist at the Toshiba Cambridge Research Laboratory, UK, and his colleagues have now developed a detector that picks out photons from this channel only if they strike it at a precise instant, calculated on the basis of when the encoded photons were sent. The team publishes its results in Physics Review X.

via Quantum cryptography conquers noise problem : Nature News & Comment.

Still, 90 kilometres is a “world record that is a big step forward in demonstrating the applicability of quantum cryptography in real-world telecommunications infrastructures”, says Vicente Martín, a physicist at the Technical University of Madrid.

Chips Race to Absorb the Line Card

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EZchip and Netronome both sell network processors — chips specifically designed for networking equipment — and both say they’re expanding their scope to cover Layers 2 through 7, thanks to their new chip designs. That means they can target switching, routing, security, deep packet inspection — pretty much all the intelligence in a network element.

via Light Reading – Optical Networking – Chips Race to Absorb the Line Card – Telecom News Analysis.

NASA to Demonstrate Communications Via Laser Beam

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It currently takes 90 minutes to transmit high-resolution images from Mars, but NASA would like to dramatically reduce that time to just minutes. A new optical communications system that NASA plans to demonstrate in 2016 will lead the way and even allow the streaming of high-definition video from distances beyond the Moon.

via NASA – NASA to Demonstrate Communications Via Laser Beam.

The LCRD is the next step in that direction, Israel said, likening the emerging capability to land-based fiber-optic systems, such as Verizon’s FiOS network. “In a sense, we’re moving FiOS to space.”

Tellabs Finds New PON Frontier

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The manufacturer claims to be the first company to convert its GPON platform into an enterprise switch, back in 2009, to enable enterprises to take advantage of the bandwidth capacity and lower costs of passive optics, and considers itself a global leader in optical LANs. Tellabs is getting competition in the field from Motorola Inc. (NYSE: MOT) and newer fiber-to-the-desktop players such as Zhone Technologies Inc. (Nasdaq: ZHNE) are also exploring how to use their PON expertise in what is expected to be a growing market. (See Moto Expands PON Family.)

Other companies capitalizing on this market are fiber management firms, such as 3M Co. (NYSE: MMM) and TE Connectivity (NYSE: TEL).

via Light Reading – Mobile Backhaul – Tellabs Finds New PON Frontier: The Desktop – Telecom News Analysis.

Tellabs has had success selling its optical LAN technology into enterprises through Value Added Resellers, and into federal government agencies. One of its new pushes is to encourage telecom service providers, especially those in rural areas, to look to optical LAN technology as something they can sell to their business customers, as part of a hosted or managed service they deliver, says Van Horne.

Simplify the Home, Protect Fiber’s Value

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“We need to collaborate as a group to help create a simple and seamless experience in the home,” Mudge said. In a conversation after the presentation, he added that this could include routers or residential gateways that enable a consistent experience and stability for the home technology user over a period of years, not months.

via Light Reading – Cable – Verizon: Simplify the Home, Protect Fiber’s Value – Telecom News Analysis.

A failure to continue to deliver on integration of in-home devices and technologies into the broadband service will cause customers to “lose faith” in their service providers, Mudge said

These service providers will hold a monopoly over FTTH so why would they care about a customer’s “faith?”

Former JDSU Exec Rediscovers His Optical Drive

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According to Lumish and his CTO, Pilot founder Frank Smyth, these products, available from October, are needed in the development of optical transport systems beyond 100Gbit/s. The lasers enable a lot more data to be sent down a fiber by cutting down the space between the wavelengths so that more can be packed into the space currently taken up by a single wavelength. Smyth points out that the spacing is fixed between the multiple wavelengths emitted by Pilot’s optical comb sources and this allows the channels effectively to be transmitted right up against each other.

via Light Reading Europe – Optical Networking – Former JDSU Exec Rediscovers His Optical Drive – Telecom News Analysis.

Avoiding Egypt: Where Cables Fear to Dredge

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New cables are finding other ways to connect Europe and the Middle East. The Europe-Persia Express Gateway (EPEG), a terrestrial cable that routes from Frankfurt to Oman via Ukraine and Iran, is built “away from the known trouble areas,” says Gavin Tait, director of Asia network planning for Cable & Wireless Worldwide plc (London: CW), now part of the Vodafone Group plc (NYSE: VOD). “Obviously it doesn’t go anywhere near the Red Sea,” he adds. (See Euronews: Vodafone Gets the Nod on C&WW, Vodafone Appoints C&WW Execs and ancotel Provides EPEG Connection Point.)

via Light Reading Asia – Optical Networking – Avoiding Egypt: Where Cables Fear to Dredge – Telecom News Analysis.

Meanwhile, Singapore’s popularity as a network destination is making it hard to land cables there, says Genaro Sanchez, Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT) vice-president of network planning and engineering. “The corridor in Singapore is narrow, it’s getting crowded, [and] it’s getting more difficult to work with cables.”

Penn Researchers Make First All-optical Nanowire Switch

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Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have made an important advance in this frontier of photonics, fashioning the first all-optical photonic switch out of cadmium sulfide nanowires. Moreover, they combined these photonic switches into a logic gate, a fundamental component of computer chips that process information.

via Penn Researchers Make First All-optical Nanowire Switch | Penn News.

The researchers were able to measure the intensity of the light coming out of the end of the second nanowire and to show that the switch could effectively represent the binary states used in logic devices.