JDS Uniphase strategizes

With Wall Street’s fickle ways and an army of new component manufacturers nipping at their heels, JDS Uniphase revealed its strategy for braving the storm at this week’s Optical Fiber Communications conference in Anaheim, Calif. The company also announced 70 new products at the show.

JDS Uniphase plans to concentrate on the key areas of network design, according to Charles J. Abbe, the company’s president and Chief Operating Officer.

“We are still focusing on what customers are trying to do, while we expand capacity, extend reach and improve flexibility and reliability,” Abbe said.

To increase network capacity the company is introducing new DWDM products to bump up the number of simultaneous channels capable of carrying signals in a fiber. The company also developed a 40 Gb/s intensity modulator and tunable dispersion compensator for use in high-speed systems.

In an effort to provide more network flexibility, the company developed the tunable add/drop, which uses MEMs for dynamic switching.

“We are trying to meet the demand boom by decreasing costs,” Abbe said. “More and more technology is going onto wafers,” he added.