Mid-Atlantic Crossroads(MAX) has deployed the Ekinops (www. ekinops.com) 10-Gigabit LAN PHY to WAN PHY protocol converter to connect its 10-Gigabit Ethernet network to an OC-192/STM-64 submarine network between the United States and Europe. This new 10 Gbit/s link provides a high-speed connection between U.S. networks and GEANT, a pan-European research and education network.
Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. (www.huawei.com) has inked a contract with Telecom Italia to provide WDM transport equipment, making it the first Chinese telecommunication equipment supplier selected for Italian telecom programs.
Telefónica de España has selectedTyco Telecommunications (www.tycotelecom.com) to install a 145-km 10 Gbit/s DWDM link between the Canary Islands of La Gomera and El Hierro. The subsea system will incorporate El Hierro as a national node into the existing network and reinforce the role of La Gomera as an inter-island node.
Exponential-e, a U.K. provider of tailor-made Ethernet services to the corporate market, is deploying the FSP 150 products from ADVA Optical Networking (www.advaoptical.com) into its next-generation network.
Syntune AB (www.syntune.com) and CyOptics Inc. (www.cyoptics.com) have announced a cooperative agreement for the introduction of a family of full-band tunable laser products. The Syntune family of products will be manufactured on CyOptics’ proprietary automation packaging platform.
Discovery Semiconductors (www.chipsat.com) has provided 25-GHz multimode photodiodes to the Technical University of Berlin for its research on directly modulated 980-nm lasers. The university recently reported the development of directly modulated, sub-monolayer grown quantum dot vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) at 980 nm for 20 Gbit/s error-free operation at 85°C. The lasers were characterised and tested using a Discovery DSC30S multimode, 25-GHz photodiode coupled to a 62.5-µm graded-index multimode fibre.
Interoute (www.interoute.com) will deploy new optical equipment across its pan-European footprint. Interoute is investing more than €22 million in the technology upgrade using a combination of the Infinera (www.infinera.com) DTN Digital Optical Network system in its European network and Ciena’s (www.ciena.com) CoreStream in Central and Eastern Europe.
Prysmian Cables & Systems (www.prysmian.com) has secured a major contract for the supply of 6,300 km of fibre-optic cable to Libya. The cable will form the backbone of the new telecommunications network of the Libyan Post, Telecommunication and Information Co., the national operator, and will extend into the northern and western areas of the country, including Tripoli. Installation will be completed in approximately 18 months, although the network will continue to evolve as other regions and cities are added to the network.
Aegis Semiconductor (www.aegislightwave.com), developer of DWDM channel monitoring equipment for ROADMs and other applications, has changed its name to Aegis Lightwave.
Bookham Inc. (www.bookham.com) has announced the issuance of a US patent (US7145923) for its DS-DBR laser, which underpins the company’s portfolio of tunable laser technology. The patent is one of several covering aspects of the Bookham tunable product range, and it specifically protects the company’s monolithic, widely tunable laser design.
DASAN Networks has awarded Fi-ra Photonics Co. Ltd., subsidiary of Ignis ASA (www.ignis.com), an FTTH component contract worth more than $4 million. The majority of the rollout will be based on the current GEPON standard, with the remainder based on the higher-bandwidth WDM-PON.
Korean competitive service provider Hanaro Telecom has selected Alcatel(www.alcatel.com) for a GPON trial in Korea. The trial started in October 2006. Hanaro Telecom is deploying the Alcatel 7342 Intelligent Services Access Manager.
RAD Data Communications (www.rad.com) has established a research and development unit in Beijing dedicated to passive optical network (PON) technology. This is the company’s first R&D facility in China. The R&D team also will be able to broaden its scope to include additional specialized requirements for the Chinese and global markets in the future, RAD says.
BT (www.bt.com) has selected Nortel (www.nortel.com) and Siemens (www.siemens.com) as its two suppliers of Carrier Ethernet equipment for the 21st Century Network project. BT will deploy Nortel’s Metro Ethernet Routing Switch 8600 and Metro Ethernet Services Unit 1850. From Siemens, BT has selected the SURPASS hiD Ethernet carrier-class switches, element management, system integration, and support services. Both suppliers use Provider Backbone Bridging Traffic Engineering (PBB-TE) technology.
Nine system, optical module, semiconductor, and connector companies have formed the X40 Multi-Source Agreement (MSA) Group (www.x40msa.org), a collaboration to develop a new, integrated data-agnostic, multirate optical transceiver intended to support a range of 40 Gbit/s links that may be used for telecom (SDH/SONET and G.709) and datacom (packet switching) applications. X40 MSA Group members includeAeluros Inc., Broadcom Corp., Emcore Corp., Finisar Corp., Infinera Corp., Juniper Networks, MergeOptics GmbH, Tyco Electronics Corp., and Vitesse Semiconductor Inc.