THE FUTURE AS SEEN THROUGH TECHNOLOGY

MEDIA STAR

SnowShore Networks' first product, the N20 media server, could be dismissed as a yet another box that was originally destined for the rapidly shrinking CLEC market. Except for one thing: It was never designed specifically for the CLEC market.

Instead, the media server, which is finding its first customers in small carriers, is engineered for large-scale applications. Like most media servers, the N20 can act as what the company calls a “DSP vault” chassis.

However, according to SnowShore President and CEO Joel Hughes, the secret sauce is the company's WireSpeed technology, which can process packets at wire speed and adds less than 5 milliseconds of latency in any application. The result is a box that lets carriers scale applications to profitable levels quickly and economically.

The company is also integrating support for multiple control protocols, including SIP, VXML and MGCP. “Carriers said, ‘Don't give us an open API with a box of discs that I have to manage my 22 languages with,’” Hughes said.

On a practical level, the WireSpeedMedia applications processing capability allows integration of Web content and data storage into voice applications. The N20 can support thousands of HTTP or NFS sessions.

“We see an evolution of those known applications into the voice world,” Hughes said. “Network gaming is an example of a new application that you can do with live voice interaction.”
— Vince Vittore
www.snowshore.com

LASER-LIKE FOCUS

One significant barrier encumbering the use of optical signals in the metro is cost. Currently, a 10 Gb/s electrical-to-optical transponder with a DFB laser costs $5000, which is just too pricey for many metro operators.

Optical component developer E2O Communications believes it can make a sub-$1000 transponder a reality through a breakthrough in VCSEL technology. It's an economic change that could break open the market, according to E20 CEO and President H.C. Lee.

Lee said E2O's VCSEL technology already has delivered 4 milliwatts of power in tests — almost three times greater than the power realized by VCSEL competitors — and expects to double that power output as the technology is refined during the next few weeks. The power breakthrough means E2O can expand its product line beyond the 850 nm lasers used in enterprise networks to 1310 nm lasers that carriers can use in their metro networks.

“The results they're showing are very impressive, but execution is going to be the key proving ground,” said Bob Steel, director of opto-electronics at Strategies Unlimited. “Somebody's got to start making these things in volume with decent yields.”

E20's VCSEL products for OC-3 through OC-48 connection should be ready by the end of February, and the OC-192 product is scheduled for April, Lee said.
— Donny Jackson
www.e2oinc.com