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FIRST
DRAFT OF 10 GIGABIT ETHERNET STANDARD COMPLETE
The IEEE P802.3ae (10
Gigabit Ethernet) Task Force completed the first draft of the 10
Gigabit Ethernet specification and reached agreement on four
optical transceivers for multimode and single mode fiber.
The four physical medium dependent (PMD) interfaces include
two multimode fiber optical transceivers for enterprise backbone
networks and two single mode fiber optical transceivers that
address medium and long reach, single mode fiber, metro
applications and connections to optical networks.
Ratification for the 10 Gigabit Ethernet standard remains
on track for early 2002. Over
200 representatives from approximately 80 companies attended the
IEEE P802.3ae meeting last week in New Orleans.
http://www.10gea.org.
The 10 Gigabit Ethernet Alliance, September 18, 2000
ASIA
CAPACITY EXCHANGE BEGINS BANDWIDTH COMMODITY TRADING IN HONG KONG
Asia Capacity Exchange (ACE), a new venture based in Hong
Kong, launched an online bandwidth trading market for carriers,
ISPs and corporations to buy and sell international communications
capacity. Connections
between ACE bandwidth suppliers and consumers will allow real-time
trading in the "spot" market for bandwidth.
Lucent Technologies supplied the multiservice core
switching and ATM equipment to support the exchange.
http://www.ace-asia.com/
ACE, September 18, 2000
AERIE
NETWORKS BEGINS CONSTRUCTION OF 432-STRAND FIBER BACKBONE ACROSS
US
Aerie Networks, a new
wholesale bandwidth carrier backed by leading oil companies and
electric utilities, began construction of its broadband network
between Chicago and St. Louis, St. Louis and Kansas City, Kansas
City and Dallas, Dallas and Houston.
Ground breaking coincides with the initial closing of $100
million in Series C preferred stock financing from a group of
premier technology and investment companies.
http://www.aerienetworks.com
Aerie Networks, September 18, 2000
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Aeerie
has already secured access to 14,958 miles of rights of way
across the continental US from 12 energy pipeline and
communications companies.
Its network architecture calls for 432-fiber count
cable to be installed throughout its planned long-haul routes.
In June, Aeerie ordered 8.9 million miles (14.24
million kms) of Corning's LEAF fiber.
The deal was valued in excess of $1 billion over four
years.
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Aeerie
Networks is led by Peter Geddis (CEO), formerly COO of Qwest.
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John
Griebling recently joined Aerie as vice president and general
manager of global network services.
Griebling formerly was responsible for network
architecture and design at Enron Broadband Services.
IRONBRIDGE'S
TERABIT ROUTING SYSTEM ENTERS BETA TESTING WITH ENERGIS UK
IronBridge Networks
SwiftCOR terabit routing system will soon enter beta testing with
Energis, a major fiber backbone operator in the UK.
IronBridge said a key feature of the new platform is a
virtual backbone routing capability that allows wholesale backbone
providers to sell virtual points of presence (vPoPs) to other
ISPs. IronBridge's
SwiftCOR scales to 256 OC-48 SONET/SDH ports and features
in-service upgradeable hardware and software and telco-grade
redundancy. IronBridge
is promising system availability better
than 99.999%, Differentiated Services support for eight classes of
service, and Packet over cheap optics (POCO) interconnects between
I/O shelves and the switch fabric.
The company is based in Lexington,
Mass. http://www.ironbridgenetworks.com
IronBridge Networks, September 18, 2000
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The
IronBridge terabit router uses four ASICs developed in
partnership with LSI Logic.
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In
April, IronBridge received $52 million in new financing from
new and existing investors.
The company was founded in 1997.
IronBridge is headed by Dr. Paul Lazay, who prior to
September 1997 was CEO of Advanced Telecommunications Modules
Ltd. of Cambridge, UK.
NORTEL
NETWORKS PARTNERS WITH ANALOG DEVICES FOR MEMs-BASED OPTICAL
SWITCHING
Nortel Networks is partnering with Analog Devices to
develop integrated optical MEMS switching elements for Nortel
Networks' high port-count photonic cross connect switches.
The switching element consists of an array of moveable
micromachined mirrors that are integrated with electronic
components. Nortel
Networks will use Analog Devices' silicon-based MEMS elements for
its second generation optical switch (Xros).
http://content.analog.com/pressrelease/prdisplay/0,1622,252,00.html
Analog Devices, September 18, 2000
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Nortel
Networks acquired for Xros (pronounced KAI-ros) for US$3.25
billion in stock (Mar 13 prices).
The start-up company was developing an optical
cross-connect system that uses silicon micro-mirrors to
connect up to 1,152 pairs of inputs and outputs with an
all-optical pathway from each input to output.
RIVERSTONE
DEBUTS OPTICAL METRO ACCESS ROUTER, FILES FOR IPO
Riverstone Networks
introduced an Optical Metro Access Router that provides 32 10/100
Base-TX auto-negotiating Ethernet ports along with two expansion
module slots to support multi-transport connections to WDM,
Gigabit Ethernet, ATM or Packet over SONET (POS).
The compact platform, which could be deployed in the
basement of multi-tenant buildings, enables service providers to
extend MPLS traffic engineering to the edge of their networks,
thereby enabling MPLS-based VPNs, MPLS-based
transparent LAN services and tiered services.
By
creating individual Label Switched Paths (LSPs), providers can set
bandwidth, preferred paths, or priority constraints at the user or
application level, for instance, for performance-sensitive
applications such as voice and video.
Riverstone's hardware-based MPLS implementation includes a
set of APIs for integrate LSP traffic engineering with subscriber
management and provisioning systems.
http://www.riverstonenetworks.com
Riverstone,
September 18, 2000
CORIOLOS
UNVEILS ITS PLANS FOR OPTICAL SPATIAL DIVISION MULTIPLEXING
Coriolis Networks, a
start-up based in Boxborough, Mass., outlined its plans for an
Optical Spatial Division Multiplexing (OSDM) architecture designed
to provide the economies of over-subscription and statistical
multiplexing in optical networks.
Coriolis will provide QoS-aware dynamic bandwidth
management of optical infrastructure over geographically dispersed
nodes. The company
said its platform could recover as much as 75% of stranded
bandwidth in traditional SONET networks by making optimal use of
the protection ring path and by partitioning
bandwidth into arbitrary amounts. Specific product plans have not
yet been disclosed. http://www.coriolisnet.com/about/press/press007.html
Coriolis Networks, September 18, 2000
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Coriolis
Networks is led by Robert L. Castle, formerly Chairman, CEO
and President of VideoServer.
Founders include Hakim F. Dhilla (formerly with
Fujitsu), Ibrahim (Ibi) F. Dhilla (Digital
Equipment/Cabletron, Cascade/Ascend), Surya Kumar Kovvali
(Digital/Cabletron), Ramji Raghavan (Digital/Cabletron) and
Bruce Thompson (NexLAN and Digital). The company has raised
$28.5 million to date from Bessemer Venture Partners, New
Enterprise Associates and Columbia Capital and the Boston
University Community Technology Fund.
ATRICA
TARGETS OPTICAL ETHERNET, GAINS 3COM BACKING
Atrica Inc., a start-up
developing equipment for metropolitan optical Ethernet, raised $16
million in first round financing from Accel Partners, Benchmark
Capital and Innovacom, the venture capital arm of France Telecom.
Products plans have not yet been disclosed.
3Com provided seed funding earlier this year and 3Com
Chairman Eric Benhamou will serve on its Advisory Board.
Atrica's senior management team also hails from 3Com,
including Avinoam Rubinstain (CEO), Zvika Bronstein (Vice
President of R&D) and Amir Lahat (Director of Systems
Architecture). Atrica
is based in San Jose, California, with R&D operations in
Israel. http://www.atrica.com
Atrica, September 18, 2000
A
NEW DRAFT SPECIFICATION FOR 1394-EQUIPPED "FIREWIRE"
VEHICLES
The 1394 Trade
Association and the IDB Forum (Intelligent Transportation System
Data Bus) introduced a draft specification for connecting portable
consumer electronics products - such as CD players, DVDs, games or
computers – to their vehicles via 1394 "FireWire"
interfaces. The draft
specification defines a complete 1394-based multimedia backbone
that would enable manufacturers to embed audio and video
capabilities into cars, trucks and other vehicles. The system
topology consists of an embedded plastic optical fiber vehicle
network, the embedded devices, one or more CCP interfaces, and the
ability to attach hot-pluggable portable devices. The network
would support products running at 100, 200 or 400 Mbps.
Video displays, navigation systems, radio head units
(telematic devices) and other multimedia applications could also
be attached to the in-vehicle network.
http://www.1394ta.org
http://www.idbforum.org
The 1394 Trade Association, September 18, 2000
IPG
PHOTONICS RAISES $100 MILLION FOR EXPANSION IN COMPONENTS
MANUFACTURING
IPG Photonics
Corporation, a member of the IPG Group (formerly IRE-Polus Group),
raised $80 million in venture funding and $20 million in new
credit facilities for further expansion of its optical components
business. The IPG
Group is an OEM supplier of high-power fiber amplifiers and
lasers. IPG Photonics
is building a new manufacturing facility in Oxford, Mass. and a
new assembly facility in Burbach, Germany.
http://www.ire-polusgroup.com/
IPG Photonics Corporation, September 18, 2000
NISHAN
CLOSES $50 MILLION IN FUNDING FOR ITS IP-ENABLED SANS
Nishan Systems, a start-up developing IP-enabled storage
area networks (SANs), secured $50 million in its third round of
funding. Strategic
investors include Sun Microsystems, Dell Ventures, Siemens Venture
Capital, Quantum Technology Ventures and other major storage,
computer, and networking companies.
Venture capital investors are TPG-Comm Partners,
ComVentures, Weiss, Peck & Greer Venture Partners, Raza
Ventures, Sofinnova Ventures, Discovery Ventures, and Altos
Ventures. http://www.nishansystems.com
Nishan Systems, September 18, 2000
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Nishan's
forthcoming platform will enable existing storage system
interfaces, such as SCSI, Fibre Channel, Fibre Channel
Arbitrated Loop, and the forthcoming InfiniBand interface, to
connect to the standard IP infrastructure. Nishan also plans
to leverage existing networking standards, such as OSPF, MPLS,
and SNMP, along with IP and Gigabit Ethernet.
Specific product plans have not yet been disclosed.
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Nishan
Systems was founded in October 1998 and is led by Aamer Latif,
who previously was President and CEO of Amati Communications,
an early developer of ADSL.
BAY
MICROSYSTEMS TARGETS NETWORK PROCESSORS FOR 10/20/40 GBPS
Bay Microsystems, a
start-up based in Santa Clara, California, announced its entrance
into the race for high-speed network processors with 10/20/40 Gbps
line rate performance. Bay's
initial single chip solution will sustain guaranteed line rate
performance of 10 Gbps. Its
silicon design will scale to 20 Gbps and 40 Gbps single chip
solutions. Delivery
schedules were not specified.
http://www.baymicrosystems.com/
Bay Microsystems, September 18, 2000
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Bay
Microsystems is led by Rick Bleszynski, who previously was a
founder at Softcom
Microsystems in 1996. Softcom
developed a specialized GigaBlade network access
processor designed to provide full OC-12 cell rate performance
for 64 byte packets. Intel
acquired the company in July 1999 for an undisclosed sum. Bay
Microsystems has received venture funding from Selby
Venture Partners, Alliance Venture Partners and Needham
Capital.
AVANEX
HIRES AGILENT EXEC AS PRESIDENT AND COO
Avanex named Paul R.
Engle as its new President and Chief Operating Officer.
Engle previously served as vice president and general
manager of the Fiber Optic Communications Division of Agilent
Technologies. Walter
Alessandrini, who has served as President and Chief Executive
Officer of Avanex since early 1999, has been elected Chairman of
the Board and Chief Executive Officer of the company.
Avanex offers a line of photonic processors for adding
capacity and functionality to optical networks.
http://www.avanex.com
Avanex, September 18, 2000
3M
FORMS OPTICAL
COMPONENTS PROGRAM
3M launched an optical
components program to bring together its various efforts in the
field. Current
product offerings include specialty optical fibers, Bragg gratings
for optical
amplification and filtering, as well as new dispersion
compensation products introduced in August.
http://www.3M.com
3M,
September 18, 2000
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