Cube Optics Supports Neo Telecoms With Original Solution In Major Backbone Capacity Expansion

Cube Optics, an innovative vendor of passive WDM solutions, in collaboration with Neo Telecoms, a leading French wholesale network operator, have completed commissioning of Neo Telecoms' new WDM (Wavelength Division Multiplexing) optical fiber backbones in Paris and Amsterdam. The new network goes beyond accommodating the relentless growth of Internet traffic: it preempts demand in terms of providing far greater transport capacity, consumed for example by ever more elaborate and video-intensive services, as well as drastically expands the ability to add new subscribers and increase connectivity among current clients.

Neo Telecoms' objectives for this upgrade of their backbone networks included:

• Limited initial investment: coupled with the expansibility and flexibility necessary to support anticipated future growth as forecast by Neo Telecoms' customers. Using passive ultra-low-loss optical multiplexers proved essential in minimizing transceiver optical power requirements and reducing reliance on regeneration or amplification stages. Deciding for a passive approach yielded major cost savings and permitted incremental implementation – allowing convenient matching of capital expenditures to revenue growth.
• Low running costs: having to fit ever more equipment into expensive, crowded colocation sites and POPs, Neo Telecoms values equipment occupying minimal rack space while consuming the least power possible.
• Independence from active equipment layer: Neo Telecoms recognized active transmission equipment as a commodity which could require frequent changes during a backbone's life cycle and augmented its passive infrastructure to support multiple suppliers of active WDM systems.

Neo Telecoms is present in all significant Paris data centers so that provisioning multiple 10 Gbps circuits between any data centers links must happen quickly. Neo Telecoms considered using ROADM technology - a technically elegant solution. However, deploying ROADM equipment would have been prohibitively costly, both in terms of the initial investments and engineering but also considering operating expenditures including rack space, operating power, energy cost of climate control as well as a complex network management system.

Instead, Neo Telecoms worked together with Cube Optics and a complementary active WDM equipment supplier to devise the customized network architecture. The concept provided the necessary capacity upgrade while meeting all other Neo Telecoms' objectives at a fraction of the cost of other proposals. The solution involved dividing the optical spectrum into five optical bands, each comprising 8 DWDM transmission channels, and providing up to 40 channels or 400 Gbps per fiber pair. Individual optical bands may be conveniently treated as an aggregate, thus facilitating pass-through functionality at intermediate nodes. Each band may also be subdivided into 8 DWDM channels to terminate 10 Gbps circuits where desired.

Cube Optics leveraged its unique expertise in designing and manufacturing high-density, highperformance passive band-splitters and multiplexers to implement a network architecture satisfying all of Neo Telecoms' specific requirements at a compelling total cost of ownership. The solution minimized transceiver optical power and required no regeneration or amplification anywhere along Neo Telecoms' Paris backbone.

Didier Soucheyre, Neo Telecoms' CEO, declared "We have been relying on Cube Optics' passive WDM products for over four years now since supplying our first CWDM backbone in 2006. Due to the hence tremendous expansion of our customers' traffic, it was clearly the right time to attempt a radically different backbone design. Cube Optics have once again delivered a superior solution, which will be a key enabler of Neo Telecoms' growth in the coming years."

Dr. Francis Nedvidek, CEO of Cube Optics commented: "Our customers and partners appreciate our ability to offer cost effective ‘pay as you grow' architectures that allow customers to satisfy their own data transport needs, or provide services to their enterprise clients. We are proud to count Neo Telecoms, an innovative Internet player in France and in Europe, as a longtime customer."

SOURCE: Cube Optics