Telecom Platform Deployment Featured Article

At OFC/NFOEC show this week in San Diego, Ciena Corporation will demonstrate how its advanced technologies and expertise with 40G and 100G solutions can help service providers travel long-haul terrestrial and trans-oceanic distances at 40G speeds.

It will also showcase how its 40G/100G expertise can improve network flexibility and speed time-to-service.

Ciena will also showcase the CN 4200 FlexSelect Advanced Services Platform with the Optical Multiservice Edge 6500 at the event. This interworking demonstration will represents the first step of the CienaOne unified network management strategy that will provide a consistent set of operational tools across the combined portfolio.

“While other vendors are still working to develop advanced optical technologies such as coherent solutions, Ciena is ahead of the market,” said Steve Alexander, senior vice president and chief technology officer at Ciena. “With leading technologies like 100G already commercially available and shipping, we're applying our innovation expertise and focus on converged optical Ethernet to conquer new challenges and meet the next-generation networking requirements of our customers. Our presence at OFC/NFOEC will showcase these capabilities while also offering a view into our expanded portfolio with the acquisition of the Nortel (News - Alert) MEN assets.”

Ciena will offer product and interoperability demonstrations on the OFC/NFOEC exhibit floor in both its mobile Innovation Lab and an adjacent booth space. These demos will include: Ciena's industry-leading 100G technology, using coherent detection and spanning more than 1,500 km. Coherent solutions “enable” advanced modulation formats that allow 40G and 100G transmission over most of today's existing optical infrastructure, according to the company.

Ciena will also demonstrate its 100G solution's ability to retain signal integrity and adapt for high levels of chromatic dispersion and polarization mode dispersion (PMD), as well as PMD transients, which become increasingly difficult to accommodate at 100G speeds.

The ability to support the upgrade of today's most challenging terrestrial routes will be demonstrated by Ciena’s 40G ultra long haul network spanning an unregenerated distance of 3,100 km. For submarine applications to span trans-oceanic distances up to 9,000 km, allowing operators to upgrade their subsea links from 2.5G and 10G to 40G, the same technology can be repurposed.

How coherent technology can be used for colorless networking, bringing forth new levels of flexibility and faster time-to-service for operators, will also be shown by Ciena.

The 40G, ultra-long-haul, colorless and 100G network demonstrations of Ciena at OFC/NFOEC are operating over 1,500 km of Corning (News - Alert) SMF-28 ULL fiber and 1,600 km of Corning fiber.

Corning SMF-28 ULL is an ultra-low loss standard single-mode optical fiber that can extend the reach of 100G transmission by approximately 30 to 35 percent compared to other standard single-mode fibers, and enables the 100G demonstration to travel a full 1,500 km without the need for regeneration and with adequate margin.

Spanning between the Ciena booth (#CV-310) and Corning booth (#2141), the 40G/100G demonstrations also include an OME 6500 platform with 100G interfaces in the Corning booth.

Already deployed and operational in live service provider and enterprise networks, Ciena's 100G solutions is the only customer-ready 100G solution in the industry today. The 40G and 100G solutions of Ciena are based on technologies such as coherent detection, DP QPSK modulation, and advanced electronic digital signal processing techniques.

At the conference, Ciena is also participating in a multitude of technical sessions, workshops and panel discussions.

In related news, Ciena Corporation recently announced the successful completion of its acquisition of substantially all of the optical networking and Carrier Ethernet assets of Nortel's Metro Ethernet Networks business.