Ericsson unveils DWDM strategy

Ericsson is throwing its hat into the dense wavelength division multiplexing ring.

"It's a different concept from pure WDM," said Jose Maria Daza, Ericsson's business development vice president for transport and cable networks. "The bandwidth race over the last few months has been purely focused on capacity. We looked more at needs for handling the network base rather than long-haul fiber exhaust."

The Erion system is a 16-channel platform, scalable to 32 channels. It includes a new capability, dubbed MuxTransponder, that can aggregate up to four traffic streams on a single channel. That increases the traffic-handling capability of the system without adding more wavelengths.

The system also is focused on delivering protection in ring or one-plus-one point-to-point configurations.

The ring configuration incorporates active segments that carry traffic bidirectionally and an inactive ring segment. When an active segment is lost, the inactive segment provides redundancy. This is accomplished by using optical amplifiers which toggle from low to high power.

Even though Ericsson's MuxTransponder is unique, the company will have difficulty breaking into the DWDM market, said Mark Lutkowitz, president of Trans-Formation Inc.

"Even in the metro market, [the major vendors] have broken into Bell Atlantic's business," he said (see story on page 6). "The best Ericsson can hope for is to become a niche player."

The company is targeting competitive local exchange carriers, which it believes can use the system as an affordable optical networking starting point.