Metro heat

The difference a year makes is baffling. Long-haul and ultra-long-haul networks — and the equipment needed to power them — were the buzz at last year's Supercomm, but this year's show was saturated with metropolitan optical developments while long-haul and ultra-long-haul technologies seemed to be a figment of the past.

Of course, the metro focus attention is warranted. Vendors seemed to have the same desire and desperation to get some of the dollars up for grabs in the metro area. And considering the metro is remaining strong as far as spending goes compared with other areas of network development, that's a good choice.

At long last, Cisco Systems unveiled 10 Gb/s interfaces for the ONS 15454 metro optical transport system.

Although upgrades can frighten service providers, Carl Russo, group vice president of optical networking for Cisco, said the migration to the 10 Gb/s interface is easy.

“You don't have to bring it down. You just pop it in and go,” he said.

But the boost to OC-192 capacity wasn't the only highlight of Cisco's units, which offers the added flexibility of being able to transport metro optical traffic over a wide variety of traffic topologies and types, Russo said. Those elements are critical in order to ensure efficient service delivery, he said.

Of course, Cisco has plenty of competition for metro dollars. In fact, Cisco and Ericsson spinoff Metro-Optix are working as Genuity's primary and secondary vendors, respectively — a ranking that does not correlate with the capabilities of metro players' systems, according to a Metro-Optix official.

“We are 300% bigger than Cisco on the backbone side,” said Kris Shankar, chief technology officer of Metro-Optix.

According to Shankar, Cisco beat Metro-Optix out of the primary vendor slot solely on pricing and deals rather than the capabilities of the product. Cisco employed a tactic that entailed the purchase of equipment for at least two years in exchange for other Cisco business, according to Shankar.

While vendors duke it out for customers in the metro area, the trend of service providers to partner rather than build out networks alone is escalating. Dynegy Global Communications recently partnered with Telseon to use each other's networks and build out an 18-city optical network together.

“Everyone has been focused on ultra long haul, but that's changing,” said Hugh Martin, CEO of ONI Systems, noting last year's craze for companies such as Corvis and Nortel Networks' acquisition of Qtera.

Telseon's CEO John Kane said providing a new set of services was key.

“With the ONI equipment, dense wave division multiplexing (DWDM) gives us the ability to create any-to-any protocol, which opens up a whole new product set,” Kane said.

Pursuing the same market, Alcatel released its new metropolitan DWDM system, the 1696 Metro Span, which also is designed for increased flexibility and efficiency (see figure).

The Alcatel system supports 32 DWDM channels and touches on the same elements as the Cisco and Metro-Optix products with the ability to support any rate and any protocol.

“It's a 32-wavelength machine with restoration,” said Glenn Nelson, director of global strategic marketing and requirement for Alcatel's optical division.

“Not everyone offers restoration. You have to make sure bandwidth is more flexible and dynamic. Things like Sonet are good; they just don't have the flexibility.”