SUNNYVALE, Calif., June 14, 2007 (PRIME NEWSWIRE) -- Infinera (Nasdaq:INFN) will unveil at NXTComm 2007 the next phase of its Digital Optical Networks vision with a preview of new capabilities of photonic integration, new features, and new software tools to enable greater performance and better network economics than ever before.
Infinera's Digital Optical Networks, enabled by large-scale photonic integrated circuits (PICs) have been deployed for nearly three years and have been sold for deployment in the optical networks of more than 28 networks worldwide with an aggregate reach of more than 150,000 fiber-kilometers. Under the banner, Free Your Network, Infinera is inviting customers to explore the next phase of Digital Optical Networks at its booth at NXTComm.
Free Your Fiber
With the growth of IP traffic, carriers and other network operators are looking for ways to scale the bandwidth on their fiber networks. While fiber optic cable is often assumed to have limitless bandwidth, most operators are trying to squeeze more and more capacity into a small section of spectrum known as the C-band because EDFAs (erbium-doped fiber amplifiers) are limited to the C-band for cost-effective optical amplification. Infinera plans to incorporate semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOAs) into its large-scale photonic integrated circuits, to deliver optical amplification across a much broader range of the spectrum, potentially enabling networks to transmit hundreds of wavelengths on a single fiber. In March of this year at its PIC engineering facility in Sunnyvale, California, Infinera demonstrated a ten-channel PIC with an integrated SOA. Results of this demonstration were presented in a paper at OFC2007.
Infinera believes that SOA technology can be leveraged for optical networks when combined with photonic integration. Ultimately, Infinera believes that its large-scale photonic integration technology can implement dozens of SOAs on a single chip. This could enable the cost-effective deployment of multi-terabit networks in the future on today's optical fiber plant and without expensive new optical component technology.
"Photonic integration and Digital Optical Networks mean new ways to think about fiber bandwidth," said Dave Welch, Infinera Chief Strategy and Marketing Officer. "We believe that Digital Optical Networks can free your fiber from the constraints of the C-band."
Free Your Services
Infinera's architecture is designed to enable multiple services to be carried across any optical infrastructure. Infinera DTN systems deployed today are capable of carrying services from 1 Gigabit per second (Gb/s) to 100 Gb/s on current infrastructures. By decoupling the service from the line rate of the optical transmission carrying that service, Infinera believes the network can deliver significant benefits to service providers in terms of:
* Economics. By running a range of services, including 40 Gb/s services and 100 Gb/s services, over their existing infrastructures, carriers can realize significant savings by reducing the need to upgrade their existing fiber plants. In addition, components for 40Gb/s line rate systems continue to be significantly more expensive than 10 Gb/s components, driving up the costs of the 40Gb/s line rate systems. * Flexibility. Infinera customers can use software features in today's IQ Network Operating System to select different services in their Infinera networks at the click of a mouse. Furthermore, customers can leverage the digital bandwidth management capabilities to provide enhanced flexibility and efficiency in switching, grooming, troubleshooting, and protecting the carriers' services. This can increase revenue opportunities for providers while reducing operating costs and simplifying operations.
Infinera is focused on developing open-standard interconnects to enable multi-vendor optical networks to carry services from any point in a network to any other point. Proprietary optical signal modulation or error correction schemes make it difficult or impossible for many optical systems to interoperate, including transport, routing, and switching systems. Infinera's aim is to standardize the service and decouple it from the underlying wavelength or other technical characteristics of the signal in order to enable service providers to deliver services across multi-vendor networks, and gain the benefits of true multi-vendor standardization.
"Our Free Your Services vision offers our customers the opportunity to choose from the best mix of services, independent of and unconstrained by the underlying infrastructure. We believe this level of flexibility allows carriers to deploy optical networks that allow them to offer a broad range of services cost-effectively and rapidly respond to unanticipated demands with minimal operations burden, thereby maximizing their business opportunity," said Dr. Welch.
Free Your Team
Operating expenses for most optical communications systems are a significant element of total cost. The Infinera Digital Optical Networks architecture is designed to deliver significant benefits in operating expense and simplicity of operation by eliminating much of the optical physics involved in deploying a DWDM network and adding new wavelengths to it. The Digital architecture is designed to liberate Infinera's customers from many of the tedious, laborious, and time-consuming tasks involved in deploying and maintaining an optical network, freeing them to focus on the more important strategic and exciting challenges they face. Today, Infinera unveils further enhancements to its IQ Network Operating System designed to simplify network management, including new planning tools and enhancements to GMPLS service intelligence for greater performance, more network automation, and more linkages between the optical and the IP layers of the network.
"Customers have told us repeatedly that the Digital architecture has enabled them to roll out large networks far more quickly and with fewer staff than they could have dreamt of doing with their previous vendors," said Dr. Welch. "Our aim is to continue to help our customers simplify their networks, so they can focus on what really matters -- designing networks and seizing business opportunities."
"Infinera has consistently taken a fresh approach to solving critical carrier issues, which include getting the most out of their network investments and simplifying operations to minimize costs and improve service velocity," said Dana Cooperson, VP Network Infrastructure at industry analyst firm Ovum RHK. "The Infinera architecture, which is built on a foundation of novel technologies, gives the company a very different perspective than competitors from which to address its customers' key requirements."
Infinera at NXTComm
The NXTComm show opens on Monday June 18th at the McCormick Center in Chicago. Infinera will be at Booth 2468 with product demonstrations and staff available to describe the Free Your Network vision in greater detail. Customers are invited to stop by the booth, or contact us at sales-am@infinera.com to arrange a visit and/or briefing.
About Infinera
Infinera provides Digital Optical Networking systems (the DTN System) to telecommunications carriers, cable operators and other service providers worldwide. Infinera's large-scale photonic integrated circuit (PIC) incorporates 100 Gigabits per second of transmit and receive capacity and the functionality of more than 60 discrete optical components into a pair of indium phosphide chips. Infinera's DTN system and PIC technology are designed to provide optical networks that provide operating simplicity, enhanced revenue generation, faster time-to-service and capital cost savings. For more information, please visit www.infinera.com.
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This press release contains certain forward-looking statements based on current expectations, forecasts and assumptions that involve risks and uncertainties, as well as assumptions that if they do not fully materialize or prove incorrect, could cause our results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Such forward-looking statements include statements regarding our expectations, beliefs, intentions or strategies regarding the future such as statements related to our PIC's ability to help technologies leverage optical networks; statements related to our ability to enable cost-effective deployment of multi-terabit networks in the future; and other statements that can be identified by forward-looking words such as "anticipated," "believed," "could," "estimate," "expect," "intend," "may," "should," "will," and "would" or similar words. The risks and uncertainties that could cause our results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements include aggressive business tactics by our competitors, our dependence on a single product, our ability to protect our intellectual property, claims by others that we infringe their intellectual property, our manufacturing process is very complex, product performance problems we may encounter, our dependence on sole or limited source suppliers, our ability to respond to rapid technological changes, our ability to maintain effective internal controls, the ability of our contract manufacturers to perform as we expect, general political, economic and market conditions and events, including war, conflict or acts of terrorism; and other risks and uncertainties described more fully in our public announcements, reports to stockholders and other documents filed with or furnished to the Securities and Exchange Commission. These statements are based on information available to us as of the date hereof and we assume no obligation to update the forward-looking statements included in this press release, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.