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PTB Industry News |
April 15 , 1999 | ||||||
Lucent Technologies
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MURRAY HILL, NJ, Apr. 6 -- Lucent Technologies has introduced its new WaveWrapper™ technology, which the company says will enable its optical networking systems to monitor and manage the explosion of data traffic on today's networks. The product is designed to allow service providers the ability to offer their customers faster, more efficient data services. WaveWrapper was developed by Lucent's Bell Labs to provide network management functions such as optical-layer performance monitoring, error correction, and ring protection on a per-wavelength basis. In utilizing this technology, Lucent hopes to move toward optical data networks that can reliably carry packet-based traffic such as Internet Protocol (IP), Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM), and Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) directly over the optical layer of the network. Lucent plans to integrate WaveWrapper with its 80-channel Dense Wave Division Multiplexing (DWDM) system, the WaveStar™ OLS 400G, by December 1999. Initially, the company will focus on wavelengths that transmit information at a rate of 10 gigabits per second (Gb/s). Moving Toward Optical Data Networks DWDM technology was developed for the transmission of different wavelengths -- or channels -- of light on the same fiber strand, thereby increasing the fiber's bandwidth. This has presented service providers with the challenge of cost-effectively managing the added wavelengths while providing fast, reliable service. According to Lucent, WaveWrapper places a small digital "wrapper" around each input wavelength as it enters the company's WaveStar optical transmission systems. These wrappers carry information such as restoration signals, what type of traffic the wavelength is carrying, and where the traffic is headed. The WaveStar systems can then determine the health of the signal, whether it needs to be rerouted, and if the necessary equipment exists to receive the signal at its intended destination. Until now, says Lucent, the only feasible way to monitor, analyze, and manage optical channels was to rely on Synchronous Optical NETworking (SONET) or Synchronous Digital Hierarchy (SDH) signals and equipment throughout the network. WaveWrapper technology was developed to provide similar functionality and reliability, but at a lower cost and without adding more equipment to the network. Lucent recently provided detailed information about how digital-wrapper technology could be implemented as a standard for bandwidth management to the American National Standards Institute's (ANSI) T1 - Telecommunications Standards Committee, the Optical Internetworking Forum (OIF), and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), which already recognizes wrappers technology as a standard for undersea systems. "This concept made such good sense and is so vital to the future of optical networking, that we felt compelled to disclose it to the industry even as we were defining our product plan," said Gerry Butters, president of Lucent's Optical Networking Group. PTB Home |