German universitiessee 40 Gbit/s
Alcatel (Paris, France) announced the successful deployment of its 40-Gbit/s solution connecting supercomputers at the University of Stuttgart and the University of Karlsruhe in Germany, a distance of more than 105 km. Alcatel representatives say this is the fastest data line in Germany and ranks among the top five in the world. The project delivers a computing power of more than 20 TeraFlops, equivalent to more than 20 trillion operations per second, for business and educational applications.
Emtelle to expand blown fiber in U.S.
Emtelle (Amersfoort, The Netherlands), which has been promoting its (air) blown-fiber solution, Fiberflow, since January 2004, says it is planning significant investment in the U.S. market in 2006. According to the company, sales of the Fiberflow solution, particularly in the FTTX market, have shown significant growth in 2005, and a new U.S. stock-holding agreement has been put in place to ensure shorter lead times and rapid response to customer requirements. In addition, the Emtelle U.S. sales office is being relocated from Boston, MA, to Phoenix, AZ, to be closer to the housing-development market.
Optical hardware holds at $2.7 billion
The worldwide optical network hardware market had a flat third quarter, holding at $2.7 billion, but is expected to finish up 16% for the year, according to the quarterly Optical Network Hardware report by Infonetics Research (San Jose, CA). The report says that the market will hold steady over the next 12 months and then pick up, with annual revenue growing to $11.6 billion by 2008, driven by strengthening metro and long haul equipment sales. “Service providers have been pushing their networks to use more capacity with minimal equipment purchases,” said Michael Howard, principal analyst at Infonetics Research.
TelCove boosts central NY fiber infrastructure
In the past year, TelCove (www.telcove.com) has invested $2 million to build out its regional Syracuse and Rome/Utica, NY, fiberoptic footprint, upgrading its local and intercity network to enable next-generation services such as enterprise Voice-over-Internet Protocol (VoIP), business continuity/disaster recovery services, and 10-Gbit metropolitan Ethernet service. According to the company, in the central New York region, TelCove now has 33 fiberoptic loops covering 500 route miles of embedded fiberoptic cable; this network architecture supports approximately 650 and 230 medium-to-large enterprises in Syracuse and Rome/Utica regions, respectively.
Exfo to acquire Consultronics
Exfo Electro-Optical Engineering (Quebec City, QC, Canada) has signed an agreement to acquire substantially all the assets of Consultronics in an all-cash transaction valued at $17.7 million. Consultronics, a privately held company founded in 1973 with headquarters/operations in Toronto as well as operations in Southampton, U.K., and Budapest, Hungary, is a vendor of copper-based broadband access test equipment. “This acquisition is a highly strategic initiative to position Exfo as a genuine one-stop shop for broadband access and triple-play testing, since it greatly complements our market leadership in the FTTX market,” said Germain Lamonde, Exfo’s chairman, president, and CEO.
IEEE picks fSONA for conference connectivity
fSONA (McLean, VA) deployed its SONAbeam free-space optical (FSO) system to bridge the high-speed networks of two conference hotels in support of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE; www.ieee.org) 802 Local Area Network/Metropolitan Area Network (LAN/MAN) Standards Committee’s (LMSC) plenary session, held in Vancouver, BC, Canada in December. “Rapid deployment and high-speed connectivity are key features of fSONA’s free-space optic links,” said Sunny Taylor, CEO of fSONA. “It was especially significant that a real-world application of the SONAbeam solution was demonstrated at this conference, given the technical scope of the audience.”
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Also in the news . . .
Redfern Integrated Optics (RIO; Santa Clara, CA), a developer and manufacturer of optical transmitters for communications and other markets, has secured an additional $2.2 million from GE Capital Equity Investments and Jolimont Ventures, bringing the total amount raised to $8.4 million. . . . LightPath Technologies (Orlando, FL) signed a three-year agreement with Ball Aerospace & Technologies (Boulder, CO) to supply Ball with fiber-delivery systems used in high-power laser delivery applications. . . . BTI Photonic Systems (Ottawa, ON, Canada), a supplier of optical networking solutions for the build-out of new broadband services at the metro edge, closed a $12.25 million Series C financing round. . . . Northrop Grumman’s (Woodland Hills, CA) newest fiberoptic gyro inertial navigation system, the LN-260, has been selected by the U.S. Air Force as an avionics upgrade for the F-16 Multinational Fighter Program aircraft fleet.