10 Gb/s Reaches Farther at Lower Cost under New OIF IA; Successful Test at OFC/NFOEC Results in Approved Agreement.

FREMONT, Calif. -- Standardized 10 Gb/s fiber optic transmission links are stretching to greater distances thanks to an Implementation Agreement (IA) approved by Optical Internetworking Forum (OIF) members last week. The agreement, titled Interoperability for Long Reach and Extended Reach 10 Gb/s Transponders and Transceivers, was tested publicly at OFC/NFOEC in March 2006. The IA uses alternate signaling technologies to extend 10 Gb/s links beyond the traditional long reach distance of 80 km to distances of 120 km, while simultaneously lowering infrastructure costs by eliminating in-line optical dispersion compensating modules.

"This agreement is timely because several network equipment manufacturers have already implemented alternate signaling technologies such as duobinary transmission or chirp managed lasers within their products," said Karl Gass of Sandia National Laboratories and the OIF's Physical Layer Users Working Group chair. "Standardizing the testing of this functionality supports true interoperability between the systems offered by different network equipment manufacturers."

The OIF technical committee worked with the ITU to establish a new application code for G.959 VR (145km/2400ps/nm) based on alternate modulation techniques combined with a pre-amplified NRZ receiver. The OFC/NFOEC demonstration validated both the specification and the interoperability of devices from Azna, Essex, Kodeos, Opnext, and Vitesse. The application code supports carrier requirements for longer reaches at lower costs (no regeneration or in-line optical compensation) and allows automatic provisioning of upgraded 2.5 Gb/s to 10 Gb/s Very Long Reach links.

About the OIF

Launched in April of 1998, the OIF is the only industry group uniting representatives from data and optical networking disciplines, including many of the world's leading carriers, component manufacturers and system vendors. The OIF promotes the development and deployment of interoperable networking solutions and services through the creation of Implementation Agreements (IAs) for optical, interconnect, network processing and component technologies, and optical networking systems. The OIF actively supports and extends the work of national and international standards bodies with the goal of promoting worldwide compatibility of optical internetworking products. Working relationships or formal liaisons have been established with the IEEE 802.3, IETF, ITU-T Study Group 13, ITU-T Study Group 15, IPv6 Forum, MFA Forum, MEF, MVA, ATIS OPTXS, ATIS TMOC, Rapid I/O, TMF, UXPi and the XFP MSA Group. More information on the OIF can be found at www.oiforum.com http://www.oiforum.com.