Three Magical Ideas From Bell Labs Power Lucent Technologies' New LambdaXtreme(TM) Transport Optical Networking System
Yesterday's Lab Experiments are the Basis of Today's Most Advanced Optical Communications System
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Tuesday March 19, 8:07 am Eastern Time
Press Release
SOURCE: Lucent Technologies
Three Magical Ideas From Bell Labs Power Lucent Technologies' New LambdaXtreme(TM) Transport Optical Networking System
Yesterday's Lab Experiments are the Basis of Today's Most Advanced Optical Communications System
MURRAY HILL, N.J., March 19 /PRNewswire/ -- Scientists at Bell Labs, the research and development arm of Lucent Technologies (NYSE: LU - news), have used their collective multidisciplinary expertise to help design LambdaXtreme(TM) Transport, the most advanced long-distance communications system now on the market.
LambdaXtreme Transport will allow service providers to send more bits of information at lower costs over greater distances than ever before, and enable them to improve the quality and availability of Internet, video, data and voice services for businesses and consumers alike. In a separate news release issued today, Lucent announced that Deutsche Telekom will start field tests of the system's 40-gigabit-per-second (Gb/s) capability next month in its network.
The new system draws on the results of an intense global research program in optical networking at Bell Labs. At the heart of the new system are three key optical innovations: Raman amplifiers, solitons, and fiber dispersion compensators. These and other innovations make LambdaXtreme Transport the industry's most flexible ultra-long-haul and ultra-high-capacity dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) system.
In optical networks, the pulses of light traveling down a glass fiber tend to degrade in various ways, and it has been customary to use expensive electronics every 300 miles (480 kilometers) or so to regenerate the signals. The innovations from Bell Labs incorporated into Lucent's LambdaXtreme Transport, however, enable transmission spans as long as 2,500 miles (4000 kilometers) without electronic regeneration. Indeed, this and other systems from Lucent are targeted at making entirely optical (no electronics at all) networks possible within a few years.
``We're working toward the all-optical network, one in which all data tends to remain in a purely optical form until it reaches its final destination, no matter how far away it may be from its point of origin,'' said Rod Alferness, senior vice president of optical networking research at Bell Labs. ``LambdaXtreme Transport is intended to serve as a less-costly, more reliable and easier-to-manage backbone of such an all-optical network, making it possible to span a continent quickly and efficiently, while dropping and adding wavelengths of bandwidth at key cities along the way.''
Each of the three key innovations in LambdaXtreme Transport overcomes a different challenge in optical networks:
* Raman amplification overcomes attenuation -- the loss of signal strength
over long distances. Inexpensive Raman amplifiers enable optical fibers
to act as their own amplifiers by pumping "booster" laser pulses into
the fibers along their span. Last year, MIT Technology Review magazine
selected a Bell Labs patent on Raman amplifiers as one of the top five
patents to watch for 2001 based on its potential technological impact.
* Soliton transmission overcomes the need for frequent regeneration -- the
recreation of the signal using expensive electronics at network nodes.
Solitons are special light pulses that travel indefinitely in optical
fibers without net broadening or other distortions. Bell Labs
researchers were the first to demonstrate soliton transmission over
optical fibers. Since solitons can carry more information over longer
distances, they are uniquely suited for use in an all-optical, ultra
long-haul system. LambdaXtreme Transport can carry 128 channels, each
with a 10 Gb/s signal, over 2500 miles (4000 kilometers) without
electronic regeneration. (Transmitting 10 gigabits per second is like
transmitting the information in approximately 10,000 books every
second.)
* Tunable dispersion compensation overcomes chromatic dispersion -- the
tendency of light pulses to spread out and begin to overlap each other
because the individual wavelengths or colors of light that comprise the
pulses travel at different speeds through the fiber. Bell Labs
physicists and materials scientists fabricated an all-fiber, all-optical
device that can dynamically compensate for chromatic dispersion. The
tunable dispersion compensator's compact size, low power consumption,
completely non-mechanical operation and superb optical characteristics
make this component a robust and important part of the system.
Many other Bell Labs innovations also play a role in LambdaXtreme Transport, including:
* Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM), invented at Bell Labs in
the 1980s, which makes it possible to send multiple streams of
information down the same optical fiber, providing tremendous network
capacity for the ever-increasing demand of today's Internet, e-mail and
multimedia traffic.
* Efficient simulation and control software tools for the design,
configuration and management of the system. Using powerful simulation
and optimization algorithms, the tools were used to design the optimal
Raman amplification scheme and its controlling software; they were also
used to determine how to best deploy the system in a complex
communications network.
* High-capacity, configurable add/drop multiplexers that allow network
operators to both add traffic and drop traffic anywhere in the network.
Current long-distance optical networks are not able to drop traffic in
between points of origin and termination.
* Dynamic gain equalization filters, which reduce the power variations
introduced as the optical signals are transmitted and multiplexed.
* Intelligent provisioning, using Bell Labs breakthroughs in a number of
software and network control and management areas. When tied with the
new soliton technology, this will allow service providers to provision
wavelengths in the network in a fraction of time and the number of steps
that competitors' older systems require.
* Ultra forward error correction, a novel approach that ensures robust,
ultra long-distance transmission through the use of powerful codes and
specially engineered chips.
``Reducing the costs of building and operating telecommunications networks is critical to our customers right now,'' said Frank Galuppo, general manager for Lucent's Next-Generation Optical Long Haul Solutions business. ``With this in mind, we developed novel hardware and software features that will help the LambdaXtreme Transport system enable our customers to offer existing services more cost effectively, while opening the door to new revenue enhancing opportunities. We could not have done it without the valuable contributions of Bell Labs scientists, researchers and engineers.''
With approximately 16,000 employees in 16 countries, Bell Labs is the leading source of new communications technologies. Bell Labs has generated more than 28,000 patents since 1925 and has played a pivotal role in inventing or perfecting key communications technologies, including transistors, digital networking and signal processing, lasers and fiber-optic communications systems, communications satellites, cellular telephony, electronic switching of calls, touch-tone dialing, and modems. Bell Labs scientists have received six Nobel Prizes in Physics, nine U.S. Medals of Science and six U.S. Medals of Technology. For more information about Bell Labs, visit its Web site at bell-labs.com.
Lucent Technologies headquartered in Murray Hill, N.J., USA, designs and delivers networks for the world's largest communications service providers. Backed by Bell Labs research and development, Lucent relies on its strengths in mobility, optical, data and voice networking technologies as well as software and services to develop next-generation networks. The company's systems, services and software are designed to help customers quickly deploy and better manage their networks and create new, revenue-generating services that help businesses and consumers. For more information on Lucent Technologies, visit its Web site at lucent.com.
SOURCE: Lucent Technologies |
