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Huawei, a leading global information and communications technology (ICT) solutions provider, today unveiled its new WDM prototype, improving upon the current mainstream commercial products that use a 50GHz fixed spectrum interval. Boasting the highest spectrum efficiency among WDM products currently available, Huawei’s WDM prototype features a flexible spectrum interval with a minimum granularity of 12.5GHz, which not only increases the spectrum utilization and flexibility of the WDM system, but also lays a solid foundation for multi-carrier technologies and next-generation bandwidth-flexible optical networks beyond 100G. This highly efficient spectrum technology will enable carriers to build WDM networks that meet future needs.

The popularity of broadband services has triggered a rapid increase in transmission capacity and a drive towards 100G networks. Technologies beyond 100G WDM have now become the next research hotspots, with multi-carrier technology acknowledged as the solution for 400G and 1T transmissions. All current mainstream WDM systems are based on a 50GHz or 25GHz spectrum interval, as spectrum utilization is insufficient for 400G and 1T multi-carrier transmissions. The highly efficient WDM prototype developed by Huawei increases the spectrum utilization for large-capacity WDM systems. This compact spectrum solution will make the high-speed signals of the multi-carrier slimmer, ensuring the fiber is able to transfer signals more effectively.

Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd.

Infonetics Research reports in its newly released Optical Network Hardware vendor market share tally that the first quarter of this year saw a drop in optical network systems revenues of 23% worldwide to $2.8 billion. The market shrinkage was particularly acute in Europe, which suffered its worst optical communications capex quarter in five years, the market research firm asserts.

The overall picture perhaps looks worse than it might because of the previous quarter’s strength. Optical network hardware spending grew 9% in the fourth quarter of 2011 (see "Infonetics: Optical network equipment up 9% in 4Q11"). Still, the situation in Europe may be dark enough to obscure any shine this caveat might otherwise have produced.

"While optical hardware revenue trends in all world regions were not positive in the first quarter of 2012, the most alarming development is that year-over-year in EMEA - particularly Europe - spending on WDM optical equipment decreased faster than spending on legacy SDH equipment," notes Andrew Schmitt, principal analyst for optical at Infonetics Research. "This is not the behavior of a region experiencing only a minor quarterly pullback. By contrast, the trend in North America was the opposite, with carriers cutting spending year-over-year but allocating towards forward-looking technology investments like WDM equipment and ROADMs."

Unlike other areas of the world, Europe doesn’t show much near-term upside, either.

"EMEA and North America are both now trending downward on a rolling fourth-quarter basis, and Asia Pacific is flat. Still, conversations with vendors and carriers lead us to believe that spending in North America will resume moderate growth and we are forecasting solid gains in optical spending in China this year in large part due to our recent visits with Chinese carriers,” explains Schmitt. “But Europe is a tough call, with macroeconomic trends there not providing much hope and evidence that some service providers there are battening down the hatches."

As is always the case, some companies weathered the storm better than others. For example, Fujitsu and Ciena outperformed competitors in North America, while in Asia NEC and Fujitsu enjoyed 28% gains in 1Q12 from the year-ago quarter. Aside from NEC and Fujitsu, the relative winners in outperforming the market were smaller companies such as Infinera, ADVA, and Transmode, the report states.

ROADM optical equipment spending was flat in 1Q12, which Infonetics considers “an achievement” considering this niche posted a record quarter in 4Q11.

Infonetics' quarterly Optical Network Hardware report provides worldwide and regional vendor market share, market size, and analysis. Equipment tracked includes metro and long-haul SONET/SDH and WDM optical network equipment (transport, ROADM, submarine line terminating equipment), and ports (Ethernet, SONET/SDH/POS, and WDM).

Russia-based global communications service provider VimpelCom (NYSE: VIP) has deployed coherent optical networking technology from Ciena Corp. (NASDAQ: CIEN) to support 100-Gbps data rates across its backbone network. The route covers 587 km between Ufa and Samara in central Russia.

VimpelCom will run the 100-Gbps channels alongside existing 40-Gbps traffic, both generated via Ciena’s 6500 Packet-Optical Platform. The ability to run transmissions at both data rates over the same fiber enables the carrier to relieve capacity constraints while protecting its existing investment, Ciena asserts.

Ciena Platinum BizConnect partner ADV Consulting aided the deployment.

“As our customers have over the last few years become increasingly sophisticated in their use of devices and services, the traffic on our backbone network has grown exponentially,” explains Alexey Sapunov, transport network director, OJCS VimpelCom. “As a service provider in the leading edge of technology adoption, we are committed to ensuring that we have the latest technology at our disposal to address our needs, which has led us to deploying Ciena’s market-leading 100G solution. The ease with which the network extension was performed not only showed that any of our bandwidth constraint issues can be solved in an easy and truly non-invasive manner, but also proved that our infrastructure can scale as and when we need it to, in order to meet our customers’ future demands.”

“VimpelCom’s 100G network is, to our knowledge, the first long-haul 100G network deployed in the Russian Federation – but much more importantly, it helps the operator effectively address the very real issue of capacity demand, which in today’s era of sharp rises in broadband services many operators have become acutely aware of,” adds Sergei Fishkin, regional managing director, Russia, CIS, and the Baltics at Ciena.

Ciena says it has now shipped more than 14,000 coherent 40G/100G line interfaces to more than 120 customers worldwide.

Communications equipment provider Iskratel has announced the immediate availability of a new GPON product line. The GPON portfolio includes the Iskratel SI3000 Pono 1U OLT and the Innbox G2400 GPON ONT.

The new GPON products complement Iskratel’s existing point-to-point offerings. The company says the new line was inspired by recent price reductions in GPON technologies and the constraints the worldwide macroeconomic environment has placed on capex. Customers have requested GPON options and Iskratel says it is now ready to deliver.

Iskratel unveiled the GPON 1U OLT in February at the FTTH Council Europe in Munich. It is designed to enable easy upgrade from a copper-based access node to a fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) node. The compact size and robust design combine with the fact that the SI3000 Pono adds no battery and cooling requirements to enable several installation and placement options, according to the company. The unit features eight fully standardized GPON OLT ports and supports up to 512 subscribers within a single 1U. The OLT can be paired with an existing multiservice access node (MSAN) to add GPON capabilities without disrupting MSAN traffic.

The non-blocking architecture enables the SI3000 Pono to be stacked via eight 1G or two 10G network ports, giving operators the ability to support up to 4,000 users.

Meanwhile, the Innbox G2400 series of home gateways complies with the ITU-T G.984 GPON standards. They feature Gigabit Ethernet LAN ports, analog telephony interfaces, a CATV connection, integrated Wi-Fi 802.11n, and an option to connect to a battery backup for lifeline services. An embedded media processor enables full-featured triple-play services, including handling multiple HDTV video streams, Iskratel says. It also supports a full-featured router and firewall, and secure wireless operation.