A kinder, gentler network

The merger mania sweeping the industry isn't the only merger story making headlines. Some manufacturers are announcing mergers of a different sort-mergers of devices within the network. One of the most striking examples comes from Ascend Communications Inc. The company is touting a "new public network" based on a more simplified optical networking concept.

Ascend plans to remove the transport layer by merging or converging the functionality of a digital cross-connect and a Sonet add/drop multiplexer into its GX 500 Core ATM multiservice switch. The GX 550 connects directly to the dense wavelength division multiplexing fiber and will support Internet protocol, frame relay, asynchronous transfer mode, private line and voice traffic.

"We are adding capabilities to our switch to allow service providers to not to have to build the transmission network anymore," said Jeff Kiel, director of product marketing at Ascend. "The functionality on our data switch looks a lot like the transmission network." The GX 550 can support all services at any speed, he added.

A similar melding of technologies is occurring on the access side. Positron Fiber Systems' Osiris Sonet broadband access multiplexers incorporate a low-speed Sonet multiplexer and a router. Osiris allows carriers to migrate from OC-3 (156 Mb/s) or OC-12 (622 Mb/s) up to OC-48 (2.5 Gb/s) with a card swap, said Andrew Knott, Positron's vice president of sales and marketing.

"We offer customers the capability to upgrade to OC-48 on the same platform, [and have] direct access from DS-1 and Ethernet directly into the OC-48 payload," Knott said. The direct access eliminates external bridges, routers and low-speed Sonet multiplexers usually required when a carrier upgrades the line speed, he said. "We put all that in the box."

The converged technology boxes are especially appealing to competitive local exchange carriers and competitive access providers, which have no legacy equipment, less cash and a desire to optimize collocation space.

These devices reduce costs in terms of hardware, installation, maintenance and management. Ascend estimates that carriers can cut costs by 75%, and Positron says Osiris can save carriers 50%. Those figures don't measure soft costs.

"Management and reliability are fundamental to access carriers. That's how they compete," Knott said. Fewer devices on the network means fewer potential failure points and less staff training for maintenance. Plus, the system is managed as a single unit.

Young carriers are signing up, including Williams Networks and Frontier Communications. Williams plans to use Ascend's network architecture to provision lines within five minutes of executing a customer's order, said Wayne Price, manager of network development at Williams Networks. Williams will offer customers more network control such as the ability to reprovision their own lines. Real-time billing is another planned service.

Williams was surprised at the network's flexibility and power efficiencies, Price said. "The hard costs alone traditionally cost about 75% [more than this implementation.] So there is a huge cost benefit. You are reducing the boxes in the network. As the reliability and availability go up, the cost goes down, and there is no separate support organization."

The incorporation of functionality within optical networking is just beginning, said Frank Dzubeck, president of Communications Network Architectures Inc.

"This is just the announcement that breaks the ground," Dzubeck said. "A whole generation of vendors will be following suit." It goes to show that "sometimes the right idea changes things," he added.

LIGHT LASERS DON BOW TIE

Lucent Technologies' Bell Labs, in conjunction with Yale University and the Max Planck Institute of Physics in Germany, has developed semiconductor microlasers that use "bow ties" of laser light to emit directional beams that are 1000 times more powerful than disk-shaped microlasers. The cylindrical lasers suffer less internal reflection and have total output of 40 milliwatts.

ALCATEL GOES UNDERWATER

Alcatel is building an undersea telecom network for Global Crossing. The Mid-Atlantic Crossing system will link New York, Florida, Bermuda and St. Croix in the Virgin Islands. The system will use wavelength division multiplexing over two fiber pairs to initially operate at 20 Gb/s. It is slated to be completed by the end of 1999.