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NETTEST UNVEILS INDUSTRY'S HIGHEST PERFORMING MICS SOLUTION FOR NEXT GENERATION DWDM NETWORKS
Added: (Mon Sep 24 2001)
New 5 dB Flat Top athermal optical components require no electricity, set new standards for system design and cost efficiencies.
LONDON, September 24, 2001 - NetTest, a leading worldwide provider of testing, monitoring, management and optical component solutions for advanced and converged networks, announced today the release of its new Flat Top MICS, a mux/demux component for multi-wavelength optical networks. The Flat Top MICS is the industry's first flat-top athermal component requiring no power to maintain temperature control across the entire operating range, thereby eliminating electric consumption, equipment, and electronics-based failures. It features a low 5 dB insertion loss and an ultra wide flat top response of 400 pm @ -1 dB, providing system designers with a "near perfect" optical MICS solution that enables new benchmarks to be set in design flexibility, performance, and cost.
"The combination of a 5db insertion loss factor and fully athermal property requiring no electricity or temperature control is a major industry breakthrough in optical component technology," said Sophie Bourzeix, Vice President of Photonic Optical Components at NetTest. "This allows us to offer customers the highest performing MICS solution available."
NetTest will demonstrate the new Flat Top MICS for the first time at ECOC in Amsterdam, October 1-3, at booth #707.
Requires No Power to Operate
The Flat Top MICS address one of the thorniest issues in optical network design today: power consumption. Electrical power is not only costly, it also restricts choices in system design. To meet this challenge, NetTest has developed its MICS component using smart, free space optics technology. Therefore, unlike alternative AWG technology, the Flat Top MICS requires no external electrical hook-up or electric power to operate. The resultant design benefits are tremendous: the Flat Top MICS operates over a wide temperature range; can be placed anywhere in the system, not just on an electrical board, for more compact designs; minimizes wavelength distortions; and reduces the overall number of required optical amplifiers, which saves system space and operational costs.
Serving the DWDM Market with Free Space Optics Technology
NetTest has a long history of being a leading supplier in free space optics technology for the DWDM market. In particular, its complete line of MICS DWDM multiplexers/demultiplexers provides a smart solution for the overwhelming increase in transmission capacity driven by a higher channel count combined with tighter spacing. Based on a proprietary diffraction-grating design, MICS features 16 to 40 channels with 50 or 100 GHz spacing. Reaching the technological milestone of a 5 dB insertion loss continues this tradition with the new flat-top response.
Additional Key Features
In addition to the benefits derived from its unique athermal characteristic, the Flat Top MICS provides customers:
· Superior reliability - The Flat Top MICS has been tested to Telecordia 1209 and 1221 requirements, ensuring that the component design and manufacturing process are extremely reliable in production environments.
· Just-in-Time Production Flexibility - Based on a new NetTest design and manufacturing process, customers can choose or alter their Flat Top MICS specifications for channel count, wavelength and spacing just prior to production. This capability gives system designers new levels of flexibility to order in advance the total number of channels they require, but decide at the last minute the exact wavelength allocation. This reduces development times and inventoried stockpiles.
"By offering customers substantial design, production and cost improvements through its Flat Top MICS, NetTest is helping organizations plan for and meet the increasingly stringent requirements necessary to succeed in building next-generation multi-wavelength optical networks," noted Bourzeix.
About NetTest
NetTest is a leading worldwide provider of testing, monitoring and management systems, as well as a supplier of optical network components, across both the optical and network layers of communications networks. NetTest provides network operators, network equipment manufacturers, component manufacturers and enterprise service providers with the network testing solutions they need. These solutions troubleshoot and optimize performance in today's most complex and hybrid networks, as well as those planned for tomorrow.
NetTest is represented through business centers in Denmark, USA, Canada and France and through sales subsidiaries and distributors all over the world. NetTest's products are sold in over 70 countries. NetTest has a staff worldwide of approximately 1,500. NetTest is a wholly owned subsidiary of GN Great Nordic, a multi-billion dollar Danish communications company and one of Scandinavia's leading industrial companies.
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ECOC
October 1 - 3, 2001
Booth #707
Contacts:
Sarah Lyle Coleman
NetTest
+33 (0) 1 30 08 88 88
mailto:sl-coleman@photonetics.com
Nick Giles
MS&L Global Technology
+ 44 (0)207 878 3000
mailto:nick.giles@mslpr.com