Optimight optical transport system eliminates regenerators

Optimight Communications this week unveiled a high-capacity core optical transport product that will play a critical role in the company’s solution, which promises to let service providers send 1.6 Tb/s over ultra-long-haul distances--over any type of fiber--without regeneration.

Unwilling to reveal much about its technology, Optimight achieves this performance by using a proprietary formatting scheme it calls full-spectrum WDM. Signals are transmitted into a system design that includes erbium-doped fiber amplifiers and signal conditioners, where channels are equalized and individual wavelengths can be added and dropped, according to Pat Montanino, Optimight’s vice president of sales.

For carriers, the Optimight solution represents an alternative in the long-haul and ultra-long-haul markets to using WDM systems that require expensive electrical regenerators or DWDM systems that utilize costly Raman amplification. By comparison, Optimight’s solution can save carriers as much as 60% on equipment and operational expenses, according to Clarel Thevenot, Optimight’s director of marketing.

The fact that Optimight can do this using any kind of fiber creates a new set of options for carriers--especially carriers that want to utilize older fiber that is unable to use Raman amplification, Thevenot said.

“We’re going to increase carriers’ capacity tremendously without increasing their costs,” he explained. “We’re interested in increasing their profitability.”

Optimight has finished lab trials and expects to enter field trials with two large IXCs during the second quarter. If those trials go well, the company expects its solution to be commercially deployed during the fourth quarter.