Lucent’s push to 40 G/bs

Anaheim, Calif.--In a week filled with long-haul transport-related developments, Lucent Technologies didn’t want to be left out. Although Lucent let its first tidbits of information about its new LambdaXtreme long-haul transport product back in November, this week the company told of a new trial with Deutsche Telekom.

The provider next month will start those trials of the 40 Gb/s DWDM system and is currently generally available. The product is intended to lower cost by easing network design and reducing regeneration sites. Another part of the spiel is the ease of upgrading the product.

And according to Lucent’s president of optical networking, Timothy Sullivan, Lucent is ahead of competitors in terms of the distance and 40 Gb/s capabilities. LambdaXtreme will support 128 channels at 10 Gb/s without regeneration until 4000 km and 64 channels of 40 Gb/s traffic up to 1000 km.

“We are really ahead of everyone on this,” Sullivan said. “No one has these capabilities,” he said.

Additionally, Sullivan said the cost of the 40 Gb/s system will not scare off service providers. It’s cheaper for one 40 Gb/s circuit pack than it is to go with four 10 Gb/s systems, said Sullivan.

And as for whether or not the equipment conflicts with existing fibers, Sullivan says no problem. “If the fiber was made since 1993, it will work fine,” he said.

At the show, Lucent also did demonstrations with Corning LEAF fiber and its home-grown OFS TrueWave Reach fiber.