ADTRAN-ADVA's metro-access play

ADTRAN and ADVA have agreed to merge after a long courtship.

The two CEOs have spoken regularly over the years but several developments spurred them to act.

Tom Stanton, ADTRAN CEO

The merger combines ADTRAN’s expertise in access technologies with ADVA’s metro wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) know-how to create a ‘metro-core-to-door’ company with revenues of $1.2 billion.

As such, the merger promises to double their size and networking skills. Yet the stock market appeared underwhelmed by the announcement, with ADTRAN’s shares down 16% for the rest of the week after the deal was announced. 

Market research analysts, however, are more upbeat.

“ADTRAN and ADVA have a better path forward together than separately,” said John Lively, principal analyst at LightCounting Market Research, in a research note.

The deal is expected to close in the second or third quarter of 2022 but only after several hurdles are overcome in what is described as a complex deal.

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Telefónica tackles video growth with IP-MPLS network

• Telefónica’s video growth in one year has matched nine years of IP traffic growth 

• Optical mesh network in Barcelona will use CDC-ROADMs and 200-gigabit coherent line cards 

Telefónica has started testing an optical mesh network in Barcelona, adding to its existing optical mesh deployment across Madrid. Both mesh networks are based on 200-gigabit optical channels and high-degree reconfigurable add-drop multiplexers (ROADMs) that are part of the optical infrastructure that underpins the operator’s nationwide IP-MPLS network that is now under construction.

Maria Antonia CrespoThe operator decided to become a video telco company in late 2014 to support video-on-demand and over-the-top streaming video services.

Telefónica realised its existing IP and aggregation networks would not be able to accommodate the video traffic growth and started developing its IP-MPLS network.

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OIF prepares for virtual network services

The Optical Internetworking Forum has begun specification work for virtual network services (VNS) that will enable customers of telcos to define their own networks. VNS will enable a user to define a multi-layer network (layer-1 and layer-2, for now) more flexibly than existing schemes such as virtual private networks.

Vishnu Shukla"Here, we are talking about service, and a simple way to describe it [VNS] is network slicing," says OIF president, Vishnu Shukla. "With transport SDN [software-defined networking], such value-added services become available."

The OIF work will identify what carriers and system vendors must do to implement VNS. Shukla says the OIF already has experience working across multiple networking layers, and is undertaking transport SDN work. "VNS is a really valuable extension of the transport SDN work," says Shukla.

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Verizon readies its metro for next-generation P-OTS

Verizon is preparing its metro network to carry significant amounts of 100 Gigabit traffic and has detailed its next-generation packet-optical transport system (P-OTS) requirements. The operator says technological advances in 100 Gig transmission and new P-OTS platforms - some yet to be announced - will help bring large scale 100 Gig deployments in the metro in the next year or so.

Glenn Wellbrock

The operator says P-OTS will be used for its metro and regional networks for spans of 400-600km. "That is where we have very dense networks," says Glenn Wellbrock, director of optical transport network architecture and design at Verizon. "The amount of 100 Gig is going to be substantially higher than it was in long haul."

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100 Gigabit: The Coming Metro Opportunity

Gazettabyte has published a Position Paper on the coming 100 Gigabit metro opportunity. (Click here to download a copy.) There has been several announcements in recent weeks from system and component vendors addressing 100 Gigabit metro networks.

The 19-page report looks at the status of the 100 Gigabit market, the drivers for 100 Gigabit deployment, the technology options and their merits. The paper then states how 100 Gigabit technologies such as direct-detection point-to-point, direct-detection WDM and coherent will fare in the metro.

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Transmode chooses coherent for 100 Gigabit metro

Transmode has detailed its 100 Gigabit metro strategy based on a stackable rack, a concept borrowed from the datacom world. 

The Swedish system vendor has adopted coherent detection technology for 100 Gigabit-per-second (Gbps) optical transmission, unlike other recent metro announcements from ADVA Optical Networking and MultiPhy based on 100Gbps direct-detection. 

"Metro is a little bit diverse. You see different requirements that you have to adapt to."

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