Urban Outfitters

De-emphasis hurts. It's like getting dumped by a girlfriend — one who was giving you a paycheck, no less. So maybe that's not the best analogy, but in any case, it's a relief when someone turns the pain of de-emphasis into a positive.

Swedish wireless giant Ericsson once commanded an array of compelling wireline technology investments, among them innovations in coarse wave division multiplexing (CWDM), which has fewer wavelengths and is less complex to manage than DWDM. However, industry and economic decline led Ericsson to focus more on its wireless core competencies and less on other businesses, and its optical endeavors took a backseat.

That left a handful of Ericsson optical engineers de-emphasized as well, but now they are center stage again: In September 2000, they formed Lumentis, a developer of metro CWDM and DWDM systems specifically targeting 3G carriers' potential urban conundrum.

If you don't think urban 3G networks and metro optical go together, think again. 3G providers need a way to handle excessive bandwidth transport requirements between wireless infrastructures in urban areas. They can assign the backhaul task to wireline carriers, a costly proposition that creates a complex, layered network that yields control to someone else.

A more direct integration of wireless and bandwidth-enriched WDM technology could offer advantages in each of these areas. And who better to implement 3G-networking and CWDM technology integration than optical experts who formerly worked for one of the world's biggest wireless vendors?

CWDM's ability to lower equipment and management costs will be a boon to cost-conscious 3G operators. “About 10% to 20% of operational costs for wireless carriers is backbone transport,” said Par Johansson, director of marketing and sales at Lumentis. “We think we can cut that in half.”

Lumentis proposes that deploying its unamplified Mentis CWDM transponders (or MuxPonders, as Lumentis calls the system that combines a multiplexer, transponder and concentrator) as part of the wireless 3G network eliminates the need for expensive backhaul carriers, saves the 3G carrier from building a full Sonet/SDH urban infrastructure, and positions the 3G network well for anticipated metro traffic growth. They even put 3G carriers in line for multiservice transport infeasible with a traditional wireless infrastructure.

Lumentis' layer-collapsing, cost-saving approach will get its first real-world test with the commercial launch of Swedish 3G operator Hi3G next month. Hi3G deployed the Mentis architecture in its Stockholm network and will pay particularly close attention to its cost-saving benefits. (The Hi3G folks couldn't be reached for comment — their proximity to the midnight sun must have them working around the clock.)

“[Hi3G's] interest did not surprise us,” Johansson said. “They wanted to eliminate the transport costs. This is why mobile is the new opportunity for metro optical technology.”