Internet Photonics Inc. this month announced products to support Ethernet and SONET services over Dense Wave Division Multiplexing.
The products include a passive DWDM, which will enable service providers to “wrap” DWDM around SONET-based networks and run optical Ethernet services alongside SONET. The company says this method, which it calls SONET Wraparound, can boost capacity on existing fibre between five and 20 times.
“This allows carriers to market Ethernet services like SONET services without retraining staff,” said Gary Southwell, Internet Photonics’ vice-president of solutions marketing. “And this allows carriers to have the same mechanisms as SONET has for restoration and monitoring.”
The company developed a so-called Mainstream Operational Adaptation capability that allows service providers to offer new services without having to overlay those services, therefore maintaining existing operational procedures. Mainstream Operational Adaptation uses standard Operations, Management, Monitoring, and Provisioning procedures that are used for SONET networks but are enhanced to support optical Ethernet services.
Internet Photonics claims that this enables service providers to extend their management view into client-side Ethernet interfaces for traffic and service-level agreement monitoring and reporting.
The company’s new products include the LightStack MXA, LightStack MX and LightHandler PC.
LightStack MXA sits on the customer premise and acts as the demarcation point for optical Ethernet services. It will be available in the second quarter of 2002.
LightStack MX is available now. It multiplexes up to eight gigabit Ethernet services onto a 10Gbps wavelength on an optical transport network. Multiple stacked LightStack MXs can scale up to 256 gigabit Ethernet streams onto a SONET ring.
The LightHandler PC is a passive DWDM platform that can be inserted into the ring to allow the LightStack MX to run optical Ethernet traffic next to SONET traffic. It is also generally available.
No pricing information was disclosed for any of the gear.