Siemens unveils “multi-haul” optical gear

Siemens introduced a new optical transport platform today that brings some of the vendor’s long-haul technology to regional and metro networks.

Siemens calls the new Surpass hiT 7300 transport platform a “little brother” of the Surpass hiT 7500 long-haul platform deployed by AT&T, Verizon Communications and others that has made Siemens the world leader in long-haul reconfigurable optical switching.

But the 7300 is much more versatile than its older sibling, Siemens said. Generally available now, the 7300 is designed for what Siemens calls “multi-haul” applications: It can be deployed in metro, regional, long-haul and even ultralong-haul networks.

A 40-channel dense wavelength-division multiplexing platform, the 7300 can handle 2.5-Gb/s, 10-Gb/s or 40-Gb/s circuits. (A future release will have 80 channels, matching the 7500’s capacity, Siemens said.) It has a reach of 1800 km without regeneration and includes amplification options for long-haul and ultralong-haul applications. And it complies with the G.709 standard for optical transport.

The gear’s multi-haul versatility, combined with its remote reconfigurability functions, allows for quick provision times, Siemens said, because the platform can communicate instantly with several disparate parts of the network.

“We can go across what traditionally have been separate domains,” said Alan Gibbemeyer, director of Siemens’ next-generation business unit. “The unified optical layer reaches into the metro and brings it into the regional and long-haul and back out. We’ve collapsed those layers.”

Siemens’ multi-haul strategy is consistent with the stated philosophies of executives at Ciena and Nortel Networks. Touting the company’s Common Photonic Layer platform late last year, Nortel president Philippe Morin toldTelephony, “Metro and long-haul is becoming a blur now. To me it’s the same market…Some wavelengths you’ll want to go longer reaches, some of them you’ll want to do coast to coast. What customers don’t want is to have three different platforms.”

Siemens has already begun shipping the 7300 to five telco customers overseas.

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