Wave of the future

Under a $200 million two-year agreement, Williams Communications will use Corvis' CorWave optical transport platform to build out an all-optical network.

Although the Corvis platform includes an optical switch, network management system and a long-haul system, Williams has not decided whether to use the entire platform or just segments of it, said Jason Martin, director of technology for Williams.

In choosing the Corvis system, Williams looked at a number of factors, including the vendor's management team and its technology, Martin said.

With the Corvis platform, Williams can offer bandwidth-on-demand instead of provisioning OC-48s during a six-month period.

Williams choosing Corvis validates the technology that Corvis has been building over the last three years, said Shyam Jha, vice president of marketing for Corvis, referring to the company's all-optical vision of the future. "It's not just about long-distance. It's not just about high bandwidth. It's not just about optical switching. It's a summation of the whole of all of these parts."

This contract acts as a significant status symbol for Corvis because of Williams' reputation. "Williams remains committed to having the best-of-breed technology," said Andy McCormick, senior analyst for optical communications at The Aberdeen Group. "The fact that they've chosen Corvis is a prestigious win for [Corvis]."

Although the reality of an all-optical future remains an incremental process, the transport piece already is here.