Internet Photonics unveils end-to-end optical Ethernet transport architecture

Internet Photonics has developed an end-to-end optical Ethernet transport aimed at a telecommunications space where new build demands are waning and upgrade needs waxing. The architecture works alongside SONET/SDH services and leverages the service provider’s existing fiber and operational model, the company said.

“We found two major market segments opening up for us,” said Gary Southwell, Internet Photonics’ vice president of solutions marketing. “One was the transport market segment that developed solutions that ran between central offices … or points of presence … or large data centers.”

In that instance, Internet Photonics developed a way to use existing optics to transport additional Ethernet capacity over existing fiber plant. In the carrier space, the target market is about 125,000 fibered buildings, Southwell said.

“We have a product that goes in there and, with our SONET insertion capabilities, we can actually go on top of those existing ADMs [add/drop multiplexers], extend their life and run this new Ethernet directly onto our demarcation point right out to those enterprise premises,” Southwell said.

The architecture is primarily aimed at delivering data services to enterprise customers, Southwell said, although it can be used for video, if that need arises.

In the cable space--Internet Photonics’ other key market segment--the new architecture eases video-on-demand implementation by letting operators consolidate servers and use existing fiber infrastructure to deliver more services from a centralized headend rather than investing in remote hub VOD servers and equipment deeper in the network, he said.

Operators “can place their products in their remote headends and our product next to the VOD servers and use the VOD connectivity on those servers to connect to our solution,” Southwell said.

Typically, operators would have put another pair of fibers onto their existing cable TV network and run VOD as an overlay or use SONET technology and put the VOD programming into different time slots running alongside cable TV, Southwell said.

“We can minimize that risk. If they have those cable networks. They can use that same fiber pair instead of using SONET,” he said. “We can go in there and take those existing SONET streams for cable TV and passively insert our device on top of their equipment.”

In both cases, Southwell said, the Internet Photonics’ gear is intended for today’s market conditions as a “very simple solution that goes in at the transport layer and allows [service providers] to offer optical Ethernet services through their existing operations or business models that they have today.”