February 13, 2004 Somerset, NJ -- EMCORE Corp. has announced the Model 9936B passive optical network (PON) transceiver for fiber-to-the-premises (FTTP) applications. This new device combines what the company believes is superior analog video receive technology pioneered by the company's Ortel Division with digital receive and burst-mode transmit capabilities. The device offers the ability to transmit and receive voice, video, and data content over a single fiber, in one compact package.
According to Brenna Hawtof, senior analyst with market researcher RHK's Broadband Access Networks program, "Global FTTP subscribers surpassed 1.5 million in 2003 and are expected to surpass 8 million by 2007. The Asia Pacific and North American regions account for nearly 80 percent of the subscribers globally. Through 2007, North America represents the largest triplexer transceiver market opportunity as RBOCs roll out voice, video, and data services over a single fiber to residential and small to medium business (SMB) customers. PON's capability to support a dedicated wavelength of broadcast analog video is a competitive advantage for RBOCs like Verizon and SBC, who have announced plans to deploy triple-play services over PON to combat MSO roll-outs of voice, video, and data offerings."
"By integrating Ortel's proprietary video/optical technology with the latest burst-mode solution available, we believe that our new triple-play integrated solution is a perfect fit to answer the needs of today's PON architectures. The product is currently being evaluated at customer accounts," said Lee Johnson, vice president, marketing, Ortel. "In addition to providing a superior video performance and broadband speeds in both the upstream and downstream directions to each end user, this device meets the price points that are necessary to enable the widespread deployment of FTTP."
EMCORE's 9936B is designed for easy inclusion in the optical networking units (ONUs) and optical network terminations (ONTs) defined in the latest FTTP proposals issued by the regional Bell operating companies. It is the newest offering to Ortel's line of FTTP products. Currently, the 7810 and 9835 receiver cards are being deployed in many video networks including PON architectures.
The video optical technology in the device can receive optical signals for a range of video broadcast options, and delivers the corresponding RF electrical output. The wide bandwidth supports the delivery of up to 110 analog channels along with digital channels that could be used for services such as HDTV broadcast and video on demand (VOD). It delivers the performance required by the new video services and industry standards. Moreover, the proprietary matching circuitry between the photodetector and RF amplification stages resolves a number of OEM design obstacles with very low noise performance.
The data and voice portion of the device currently supports full duplex 622/155-Mbit/sec transmission, and next-generation versions will provide Ethernet/IP capability to the network edge and the ultimate consumer. EMCORE also will offer an option that will support 2.5 Gbits/sec for Gigabit Passive Optical Network (GPON) applications in the near future.