Optical Switch raises the curtain

(Telephony) Lowering cost and increasing functionality is enough to turn heads. A new vendor, Optical Switch, hopes to accomplish that with its new families of optical switches.

The company’s new product families, FiberKey and Kaleidoscope, are transparent optical solutions expected to increase network bandwidth capacities and reduce network provisioning, routing and recovery times.

Currently in beta testing, FiberKey has port counts varying from 1x2 to 8x8. And simplicity of control of those interfaces was very important, according to Gary Nabhan, president and CEO of Optical Switch. Additionally, the use of limited space was paramount, he said.

The product also has synchronized 4x8 protection, which no one else is currently offering, Nabhan said.

The FiberKey switching technology uses what is called Frustrated Total Internal Reflection (FTIR) to provide rapid switching times and high reliability levels. That technology enables it to protect several optical facilities in one package, while retaining its state during power outage.

Kaleidoscope has 1x12 to 1x128 module configurations and 16x16 to 32x32 matrix configurations and use free-space conformal optics technology for high precision and performance, according to Nabhan. One of the Kaleidoscope modules enables the health of a network to be monitored easily, Nabhan said. Providers can simply select which channel they want to test, he said.

“Service providers can look at the health of the fiber all the way through a conduit, even in ultra long haul,” Nabhan said.

The other Kaleidoscope module is used to build optical cross-connects. The Kaleidoscope optical switch is available.