NEW OPTICAL PRODUCTS ABOUND AT SUPERCOMM

New product announcements in the optical equipment space were so numerous at (and around) this year’s Supercomm convention that some product announcements—including new features added to existing products—may have been drowned out amid the noise.

Zhone Technologies announced the addition of standard-based resilient packet ring (RPR) technology to its MALC digital loop carrier platforms (which Zhone calls “packet loop carrier platforms”), giving those products the quick protection-switching and quality of service features RPR brings to both packet-based and time-division traffic.

Additional news came in the area of coarse wavelength-division multiplexing (CWDM). Metrobility Optical Systems expanded its CWDM gear to offer a range of speeds from 45 Mb/s to 2.7 Gb/s with its new Radiance R380 line card.

In addition, ECI Telecom introduced new capabilities on its XDM multiservice provisioning platform that integrate CWDM with dense WDM, Sonet and Ethernet traffic. The capability can be gained by adding modules to existing shelves. In a statement released by ECI, Current Analysis analyst Dave Dunphy credited the XDM with “the most thorough integration” of those four traffic types.

At Supercomm, ECI also introduced its Hi-FOCuS MiniRAM Outdoor Unit, a fiber-to-the-premises product featuring ADSL2+ capabilities and GigE interfaces for the delivery of triple-play services.