MPLS Quandary: Optical Cross-Connects Finally Poised for Takeoff

A year ago, the Holy Grail was to be able to pass wavelengths around the metro and into the long haul seamlessly without having to convert them electronically. Suddenly the market was awash in solutions based on micro-electro-mechanical (MEMs) technology, and the photonic revolution appeared to be at hand. There was just one problem: The carriers weren't buying, and it wasn't just because of the capex slowdown.

This year at SUPERCOMM there will be plenty of talk about the latest developments in photonic or all-optical cross-connects. So far, just about everyone on vendor and customer sides of the fence says that's where the market is headed. But there will be much attention, and possibly some important spending, directed to a new generation of optical cross-connects that rely on optoelectronic or OEO conversion, but with functionalities and compactness that go beyond earlier product lines. These new products are expected to set the stage for evolution to ever more optics-centric network operations.

"It's all a matter of economics," says Sab Gosah, director of product marketing at Polaris Networks, a startup that's notable for not banking on cutting-edge photonics as its leverage point of entry into the market. "Before, the focus was on optical bandwidth management and wavelength switching, but now we're back to basics where the emphasis is on more efficient handling of the cash cows of TDM services across optical network interfaces."

Polaris expects to roll out its first product during the fourth quarter, an optical cross-connect targeted to the wideband traffic traveling through the metro core. The company expects this month to start trials with four carriers.

Gosah says the key selling points will be an ability to cut operations and capital costs through point-and-click operations of a highly condensed single-rack unit. "Carriers typically spend between $200,000 and $1 million per year in operations expenses to manage these systems," Gosah says. "We're saying the use of our platform will bring those costs down to $40,000 to $50,000 per year."

Polaris, founded by executives with a strong background in cell and IP technology, has focused on TDM because of the surging demand for T1 private line, Gosah says. Research by McKinsey & Co. shows the market for T1 private lines hit $9 billion in 2001 and is projected to go to $34 billion by 2005. "We'll offer software upgrades for handling IP and ATM traffic soon after general availability of the initial product," he adds.

OEO Migration Grows

Vendors targeting optical cross-connection at the long-haul core and between long haul and metro networks are moving along similar lines with respect to condensing functionalities while retaining the OEO conversion.

Alcatel, for example, has completely altered its optical cross-connect migration path since bringing its 1660 CrossLight photonic system to market at last year's SUPERCOMM. The product was designed to perform traditional grooming and related operations at the edge through OEO conversions while photonically switching remultiplexed optical signals through the core matrix of wavelength interfaces. Alcatel pulled that product from the market last year.

Today, the vendor is working closely with customers to fashion a transparent all-optical core wavelength cross-connect that will employ the optical layer routing and management capabilities of GMPLS (Generalized Multiprotocol Label Switching), which is expected to be available by year's end, says Tom Fuerst, director of global solutions for Alcatel's terrestrial networking group. "An optical cross-connect must do three things: grooming, performance monitoring and restoration in instances where mesh topologies are used," he says. "So what you're seeing is that where photonic technologies need time to mature, there's still a need for OEO systems that can support those functionalities and that can operate at the electronic level of granularity as well." But, to make the OEO systems better suited to handling the requirements of mesh network restoration and optical layer management in general, Alcatel is about to make GMPLS available for the OGX and Lambda Gate product lines, he adds.

RBOCs in LD

RBOC preparations to enter the long-haul market are a big factor in the mounting demand for these products, notes Paul Haddad, director of marketing for optical long-haul solutions at Nortel Networks. "The RBOCs are typical of the evolutionary approach carriers are taking to optical networking," Haddad says. "They want to be able to integrate from the metro ring side to the long haul, and that includes integrating network management, but they also want to be able to add new services to the platform they're putting in place.

Nortel recently named Touch America as its first customer for the OPTera Connect HDX line of optical cross-connects. The HDX is a single-shelf solution operating at switching speeds of 640gbps, scalable to 3.84tbps, with interfaces at up to 10gbps per wavelength and support for migration to 40gbps interfaces. The system, which employs GMPLS and the Nortel-led intelligent optical switching standard known as ASTN (Automatic Switched Transport Network), consolidates all the add/drop, optical multiplexing and grooming down to STS1 granularity in the same footprint, Haddad notes.

Nortel also has taken a step forward on the metro front by providing a means of facilitating optical switching from primary to secondary rings using a combination of DWDM and coarse WDM, which typically involves eight or fewer wavelengths. "We're embracing all the trends toward photonic switching over time, but we're trying to bring the value of all-optical operations to the market today," says Jack Hunt, director of marketing for metro optics at Nortel. "We're using wavelength switching that we've developed in-house as part of this solution, but it isn't a photonic switch."

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