ECI Telecom Optical Success

President and Editor-in-Chief

There is no doubt the broadband revolution is rolling right along and events like Live Earth where millions stream video simultaneously show how IP

communications is doing it’s part to ensure broadband pipes are as clogged as possible. As this revolution of faster pipes takes place, companies like ECI Telecom are benefiting by rolling out new products in the areas of the market where there is a need for ever more fiber.

Specifically the company has enhanced its XDM Multi-Service Transport Platform allowing it to have the reach of long-haul DWDM

systems. How? Well they use more powerful amplifiers and this means the tremendous expense required in adding transponders between cities 2,000 kilometers apart is no longer needed.

Part of the upgrade includes doubling channel capacity allowing 800 Gbps per a single fiber pair.

As you might expect emerging markets like Asia, India and Russia are at the top of the list of growth for the company and providing fiber solutions to wireless service providers – among other providers has proven to be a great business in these markets.

Anther area of growth is the ROADM (News - Alert) space which company executives tell me is very hot in European metro markets. They also tell me they think they have the only pure ROADM on the market. The term stands for “reconfigurable add-drop multiplexer” and the benefit of such a product is it enables you to reconfigure and load balance your optical systems as well as configure them remotely.

Other benefits of ROADM technology are that the system reduces points of failure as less regeneration technology is needed throughout a network. Moreover there is no need to upgrade intermediate nodes when new wavelengths are added.

ROADMs also reduce time to market as optical networks become fully configurable especially with technologies like tunable transponders in place. As Ram Orenstein the company’s AVP tells me, adding a 10 Gbps wave used to take six months due to new equipment needed and network reengineering. Now he says it can take a matter of minutes.

A final benefit of ROADM technology is improved quality of experience as the equipment has better diagnostics built in. This ability allows for more remote diagnostic abilty and this translates into being able to find problems before they happen.

The company tells me their sales pipeline is full and after my interview with Ram and others the company did indeed get purchased at a premium. So it seems like there are others beyond ECI Telecom who think the story is a good one. As the need for bandwidth increases it seems a number of optical companies may start partying once again like it’s 1999.

Rich Tehrani is President and Group Editor in Chief at TMC (News - Alert) (News - Alert). In addition he is the Chairman of the world’s best attended VoIP event, Internet Telephony Conference & Expo.