Events 2006 Round Up

Since our last newsletter Polatis has attended three major tradeshows, OFC/NFOEC 2006 in Anaheim, California, the National Association of Broadcasting (NAB) conference in Las Vegas and finally GlobalComm 2006 in Chicago. We have met with over 400 conference delegates, some of whom were brought to us by our distribution partners, JDSU, Marubun Corporation, and Thomson Grass Valley so may we also convey our thanks to them.

Polatis’s broad range of high performance optical switch products were demonstrated as part of the specialization strategy aimed at users in the video broadcast, Government systems, instrumentation & test, and telecommunication networking segments.  The specialization of Polatis products allows us to better fulfill the needs and requirements of our diverse customer base. It has enabled us to create tailor made products for specific applications in targeted industries.

More products and innovative configurations of demonstration were launched at the three exhibition shows.

Video Broadcast – Product Launch

The TrinityTM family of optical video routing switchers, a specialized range for the video transport, broadcast, and post-production industries, was launched at OFC/NFOEC and then featured at both NAB and GlobalComm. The demonstration shown at NAB was part of the Thomson booth, set up with Thomson equipment. It was considered a huge success, so many thanks to our video broadcast distribution partner; Thomson Grass Valley.

Through its all-optical nature, Trinity expands the capabilities of today’s broadcast infrastructure to meet the needs of existing & future broadcast standards.  Symmetric and asymmetric configurations to 64 total ports are currently offered. Polatis demonstrated optical switching of uncompressed (SD) video signals in an end-to-end SMPTE-259 network, Illustrating Trinity’s ability to switch digital video signals with full transparency. The Trinity switch will also accommodate uncompressed SMPTE-292 HD signals with no impairment to signal integrity.

Network Monitoring and Test Demonstration

Currently in a service provider network monitoring application, Polatis formally announced the High Port count Asymmetric (HPA) product for network monitoring, test, and provisioning. The HPA gathered much interest as it demonstrated a scenario to actively monitor and locate fiber faults, and allow service restoration, illustrating the effectiveness of a switch as part of a fiber layer management strategy. Aimed at RFTS and PON/FTTx test & monitoring, the HPA is a highly flexible system, capable of port arrangements from 4x196 to 8x144 in a single 6U chassis, and is expandable to 8x900 in a single rack – while maintaining less than 2.0 dB insertion loss.

Launch of Network Switching and Reconfiguration Demonstration

At GlobalComm, Polatis launched a Network Protection and Restoration Demonstration, highlighting the application of optical switching for network fault detection, protection switching and network restoration. The demonstration consisted of a 4-node network interconnected with fiber links to perform real-time fault detection and protection switching. The configuration demonstrated that Polatis optical switches could detect fiber breaks and perform a very fast protection switch using a shared pool of pre-assigned paths. The shared pool of protection paths showed the high efficiency of the technique since many network connections could share the same pre-defined pool of protections paths.

A key element of this demo was that the Polatis switches were capable of locally detecting fiber faults at both the transmitting and receiving end of the optical network connections without the need for signaling between nodes. A wide variety of techniques exist for locating physical layer faults. In this demonstration fiber faults were detected by looking at the loss if signal at the receiving end and by measuring reflections from the break at the transmitting end. Without the need for signaling between nodes, rapid fault detection and protection switching were achieved in 10-15ms on average. In all circumstances the local switching was fast enough that the fault condition was fixed before it was even detected by the higher-level network systems. In addition, the shared protection pool was configured to provide protection against multiple network faults, which can greatly enhance overall network reliability and availability. After the fault was repaired, the switches were controlled remotely and restored the network to its original configuration.

This technique for network protection and restoration is not intended to supplant SONET and other traditional forms of network protection. The method would most likely be used in conjunction with traditional methods to give added security and protection against fiber faults. For example, this method can be used as a first line of defense for very fast fiber protection switching along with protection switching when commanded by the traditional higher-level network layers. The concepts highlighted by this demonstration illustrate some of the many possibilities for integrating Polatis’ optical switches into traditional network applications.

Product and Network Verification

As an expansion of its Instrumentation line, at OFC/NFOEC Polatis Introduced the VST optical switch.  The VST is the first of its kind, featuring a fully integrated, ultra-low loss optical matrix switch with per-port variable optical attenuation and calibrated power monitors in one compact package. Port sizes include 4x4 through 32x32, and options for the powerful user-assignable port asymmetry feature.

Polatis and JDSU’s Total Test Solution

With total system solutions in mind Polatis and JDSU integrated optical test equipment, as part of a “total test solution” demonstration, illustrating the power of a switch to effectively automate tests in design & production environments, this was launched at OFC/NFOEC and later demonstrated at GlobalComm.  JDSU has a worldwide distribution agreement with Polatis for its entire Instrumentation line of products.

Polatis demonstrated many of it’s established, previously released products, including its OSM (Optical Switch Module) and its widely deployed OST (Optical Switch Tray) in 4x4 to 32x32 sizes both the single mode and multimode configurations were demonstrated.

With demonstrations of over 10 unique products, in 4 separate market areas, at 3 of the industries largest exhibition shows, Polatis continues to demonstrate a world leading position in all-optical switching. The breadth of the Polatis product line continues to grow as it expands into new markets. Many of these demonstrations will be displayed at the forth-coming ECOC exhibition, Cannes, France – September 25th-27th. If you would like any information regarding the demonstrations detailed in this article or any of the exhibitions please contact us. 

Back to Newsletter Page 1