Frontier upgrades to OC-192

Making good on its December 1998 promise of creating a network express lane, Frontier Communication is purchasing OC-192 equipment from Hitachi Telecom and dense wave division multiplexing equipment from Pirelli Cables & Systems.

Frontier is upgrading parts of its OC-48 (2.4 Gb/s) Optronics network, which now uses NEC's DWDM system, to OC-192 (9.6 Gb/s). The carrier will also deploy Pirelli's WaveMux DWDM system, which supports OC-48 and OC-192.

"We're getting in the fast lane," said Jim Watts, director of transmission engineering at Frontier. "Based on our rapid growth, we developed a plan to hit major city pairs with an express lane and with OC-192 capable DWDM."

The Optronics network comprises a series of four-fiber bidirectional line switched rings (BLSRs), so Hitachi's AMN 5192 meshed with Frontier's plans. "The four-fiber BLSR design was a primary reason why we choose it," Watts said. Frontier was also attracted by the network management system, full time slot capabilities, payload capacity for Internet protocol and distributed network support, Watts added.

Frontier also needed the transport system to interoperate with the Pirelli DWDM system, requiring a test process that took about six weeks, said Ed Mitchell, senior product manager of Sonet for Hitachi. "There were not a lot of technical hurdles that we had to overcome, surprisingly," he said.

Mat Steinberg, director of optical networking at RHK, called the Hitachi/Pirelli interoperability "impressive," adding that it may pay off in future deals. "Interoperability is a big one. All the equipment didn't come from one vendor, so both companies have to work with each other," he said. "They have demonstrated that they have successfully worked together here."