OFC: the push for 40 Gbit/s

17 Jun 2002

Photonics component manufacturers push 40 Gbit/s systems at the optical communications industry's leading event.

After a bleak year, the optical communications industry gathered at the Optical Fiber Communications (OFC) conference in Anaheim, US, for its annual get-together. At an estimated 32 000 according to conference organizer the Optical Society of America, the attendance was down on last year's 40 000 but higher than some had feared.

This year, much of the activity was focused on 40 Gbit/s components and systems, as well as metropolitan networks. However, one very big question remains unanswered: when will network operators start buying systems again?

Corning, US, the world's leading optical fiber manufacturer, does not seem to know. Looking at last year, Alan Eusden, the company's vice president of optical fiber, said that the overall fiber market declined by 5 % in 2001. This represents the first year-on-year drop in the worldwide fiber market.

As far as 2002 is concerned, Corning executives said "we believe that the optical fiber market is bottoming out", but added that they could not predict anything beyond a slight rise in sales for the next quarter.

They expect any recovery to be led by metropolitan market growth and lighting of currently unused fiber.

The lack of market visibility didn't distract Lucent from launching LambdaXtreme, a long-distance 40 Gbit/s system. The product is based around Raman amplification, soliton transmission and also contains a tunable device to compensate for the dispersion of different wavelengths in a soliton pulse as it travels down a fiber.

German operator Deutsche Telekom will start field-tests of LambdaXtreme in its network next month. Whether it will subsequently buy the system remains to be seen.

Also at OFC, Alcatel Optronics, France, and JDS Uniphase and Nortel Networks of Canada agreed a multi-source deal for uncooled 960-980 nm pump lasers used in metropolitan and long-haul networks. The companies say that the the new lasers, which are wavelength-locked with a fiber Bragg grating, are smaller and cheaper than existing devices. Under the agreement, all three companies will develop, manufacture and market the lasers.

Alcatel and JDS made a similar agreement with UK-based Kamelian, on the subject of semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOAs). Also targetting metropolitan networks, SOAs are devices for manipulating light in optical networks by amplification, regeneration, wavelength-conversion and switching.

For more detailed coverage of OFC, see fibers.org.