Lucent to offer 400-Gbit/s networking system
Lucent Technologies (Murray Hill, NJ) has announced an optical networking system with 400-Gbit/s capacity over a single fiber, five times more than any of today`s commercial systems and enough to carry the entire planet`s Internet traffic. The system, the WaveStar OLS 400G, can be configured to handle u¥to eight fibers, providing a maximum capacity of 3.2 Tbit/s. Based on Bell Labs research, it allows incremental upgrades to 80 channels and will accommodate mixed OC-48 and OC-192 traffic over the same fiber simultaneously. "We`ve in essence taken dense wavelength-division multiplexing--DWDM--and created `ultradense` wavelength-division multiplexing--UWDM," said Gerald Butters, president of Lucent`s Optical Networking business unit. Lucent claims that communications service providers can realize equipment cost savings of u¥to 40% over today`s systems. AT&T has announced plans to evaluate the WaveStar OLS 400G in its test facilities in the fourth quarter of this year, about the time Lucent`s system is expected to become commercially available.
In other company news, Lucent announced that revenues were u䁾% to $8.7 billion in its most recent quarter ended Dec. 31. Earnings excluding one-time charges were u䂓% to $1.1 billion, or $1.72 per share. Lucent also announced that CEO and president Richard McGinn will be named chairman of the company, succeeding Henry Schacht.