At ECOC (stand #444), taking place next week (September 17-19) in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, Oclaro Inc of San Jose, CA, USA will be showcasing what it says is the industry's first 8-port flexible grid Optical Channel Monitor (OCM).
The new OCM is designed to deliver the flexibility, speed and accuracy needed for the next generation ROADM (reconfigurable optical add/drop multiplexer) architectures being implemented to support 100 Gbps and higher data rate channels, says the firm. It can measure the channel power and frequency of 8 DWDM input ports and incorporates advanced features such as port or channel dwelling and prioritization through advanced embedded intelligence and signal processing capabilities.
To meet demand for higher bandwidth at lower per-bit transmission costs, service providers are switching to highly meshed network topologies with multi-degree colorless, directionless, contentionless and flexible-grid ROADMs and coherent high bit-rate transceivers. OCMs with embedded intelligence features are critical for these optical networks, because they not only provide accurate channel power and frequency measurements for channel control and system optimization, but they also enable monitoring of add/drop routing fidelity, validation and correct control of alien channels, as well as provide early-warning diagnostics with features such as port and channel dwelling. Oclaro's new OCM provides this functionality and enables customers to meet the demanding space and power requirements in the central office by replacing switch/single-port OCM combinations or multiple 4-port modules with a single OCM.
"Oclaro's new OCM represents a significant milestone towards the development of more intelligent optical networks that are capable of managing advanced future signal formats at 100 Gbps and above," said Richard Smart, general manager of Optical Networks Solutions BU at Oclaro.
Key features of the OCM include:
- Data rate and modulation format agnostic
- Flexible-grid channel power measurement with start-stop frequency commands
- Dynamic port and channel prioritization capability
- Channel dwelling capability and embedded data processing
- Cost-effective multi-port monitoring
- High speed operation
- Small form-factor
Oclaro's 8-port OCM is currently being sampled by customers and is expected to be in volume production during the first half of 2013.
