Telstra tests Nortel 40G & 100G DWDM gear

Stuart Corner
Monday, 03 August 2009 04:53

Business IT - Technology

Telstra said it had implemented the increase using upgrades to the Ericsson (formerly Marconi) MHL 3000 dense wavelength division multiplexing technology. Tony Malligeorgos, VP, marketing and business development at Ericsson Australia, said: "The Marconi MHL 3000 WDM platform is today capable of delivering 80 channels at 40Gbps per channel over a single fibre pair, with an upgrade path to 100Gbps per channel once the standards for the technology are ratified." The announcement came two years after Telstra's initial trials of the technology.

And while the distances might be greater Telstra's trial of Nortel 100G technology is not the first. Nortel announced in March that UK carrier Neos had tested the technology in a live network trial on a North/South route between Manchester and London (via Cambridge) in the UK over a fibre distance of 705km without signal regeneration.

Nortel does, however appear to have a market lead in the earlier, and now well-established 40G DWDM technology. In June, Nortel issued a press release quoting research firm Dell'Oro Group to claim a leading 41 percent share of the global 40G DWDM market, which Dell'Oro expects to be worth about $US1.2b globally.

Nortel quoted Jimmy Yu, optical market analyst, Dell'Oro, saying "While the overall worldwide optical market declined 20 percent sequentially and 11 percent year-over-year mainly due to the effects of the global economy, the 40G market has shown continued growth and strength with a 1Q09 increase of 8 percent sequentially and 400 percent year-over-year," said Jimmy Yu, optical market analyst, Dell'Oro. "We expect 40 Gbps revenue to grow at a 35 percent compound annual growth rate to a market size of $1.2 billion in revenue by 2013."

Nortel said at the time that "46 service providers around the world have signed on to deploy Nortel's 40G solution, with about one third of those providers being new Nortel optical customer opportunities. In all, over 1,500 Nortel 40G ports have been shipped to date. Nortel is also a leader in the development of 100G solutions, with seven successful 100G field trials already announced, and availability of the Nortel 100G solution planned for later this year."