Hitachi Announces Industry's Most Flexible, Robust High-Capacity DWDM Solution; System Enables Continuing Competitiveness of Carrier Networks - Product Announcement

Edge: Work-Group Computing Report, Feb 21, 2000

Hitachi Telecom (USA), Inc., Tuesday announced major enhancements to its AMN 6100 DWDM (Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing) product along with details of an evolutionary growth plan that together make the product the industry's most flexible, robust and future-proof high capacity DWDM solution.

The AMN 6100, available Tuesday as a 320 Gb/s, 32-wavelength OC-192 based unidirectional DWDM system, is being enhanced in the following ways:

-- A Transmux capability, also being announced Tuesday, combines OC-12/OC-12c (622 Mb/s) and OC-48/OC-48c (2.5 Gb/s) inputs onto the OC-192 channels, allowing full utilization of the 10 Gb/s backbone transport bandwidth, regardless of the inputs being used. This capability makes the AMN 6100 the most flexible OC-192-based DWDM system available. Evaluation units of the AMN 6100 with Transmux are available now, with general availability in June 2000.

-- An Optical Add/Drop Multiplexer (OADM) capability, through which 25% of the channels can be added or dropped at an amplifier site. For sites with limited add/drop requirements, the OADM can save up to 80% compared to add/drop solutions that require optical/electrical/optical conversion. The OADM capability can be added in-service. OADM evaluation units are available now, with general availability in June 2000.

-- In-service growth to 64 OC-192 channels (640 Gb/s capacity) by the addition of 32 L-band channels, and in-service growth to 128 OC-192 channels (1.28 Terabits per second capacity) through the implementation of 50 GHz wavelength spacing. The L-band upgrade will be available in the fourth quarter 2000, and the 1.28 Tb/s upgrade is scheduled for second quarter 2001.

-- Ultra-Long-Haul capabilities are planned for carriers whose networks can benefit from extended reach between regenerator sites. The initial release of Hitachi's Ultra-Long-Haul product is scheduled for early 2001.

-- High Density 10 Gb/s Regenerators, offering 16 East/West pairs per bay with full performance monitoring, will be available in first quarter, 2000.

-- Tunable Lasers with channel selection capability will simplify sparing requirements. Availability is scheduled for first quarter, 2001.

-- Optical Transport Network (OTN) or "optical wrapper" technology will be available in fourth quarter 2000. OTN offers full transparency of client signals and is essential to the success of the Optical Bandwidth Manager.

-- Hitachi will introduce an Optical Bandwidth Manager in early 2001. This product is a key to the true all-optical network, offering fully flexible routing and protection along with performance monitoring capabilities.

Details of these enhancements will be covered in separate announcements in the coming weeks and months, Hitachi officials noted.

"Hitachi understands that service providers are concerned about future proofing their networks," stated George Cagle, Hitachi Telecom's vice president, engineering. "Our AMN 6100 product is aimed directly at this need, offering the flexibility of multi-service, multiple-rate inputs and in-service upgrades, ensuring that our customers can keep their existing revenue streams going even as they add capacity for new business."

Hitachi's AMN 6100 is a unidirectional DWDM system, allowing maximum separation at high channel counts, avoiding channel interference or reflection, which is a problem with bi-directional systems. Further, the full stated channel count is available for two-way transmission.

For example, for a 32-channel unidirectional system, each of the 32 channels provides two-way transmission, unlike bi-directional systems, in which two DWDM channels (wavelengths) are used to multiplex the signal onto a single fiber. Thus in a bi-directional system, true channel counts are half the stated number.

Hitachi's AMN 6100 can initially be installed as a 16-channel, single shelf system, operating in the C-band range with either red-band or blue-band wavelengths. An optical coupler is provided in the initial shelf, allowing a second shelf with 16 additional wavelengths to be added without interrupting traffic currently being carried on the first shelf.

The upgrade to the two additional L-band shelves is accomplished in a similar manner. Up to four 16-channel shelves can be mounted in a single equipment bays, yielding a density of 64 10 Gb/s channels per bay.

Flexibility and full bandwidth utilization: inputs can be OC-12 or OC-48 through the Transmux interface, or direct OC-192. A mixture of OC-12, OC-48 and OC-192 inputs can reside on a single AMN 6100 system. This allows a very flexible growth path from OC-12 and OC-48 to OC-192, and the mixing of rates within the same DWDM system at the carrier's discretion.

The Transmux capability can also be added in-service. The table below shows the maximum channel count for each input rate, in each case utilizing the full OC-192 line rate of the AMN 6100 system:

Input Rate       C-band          C L bands        50 GHz spacing,
                                                     C L bands

OC-192             32               64                   128
OC-48             128              256                   512
OC-12             512             1024                  2048