TMCnews Featured Article

MRV Communications (News - Alert), a provider of packet switching, packet optical or ‘P-OTS’, physical layer and out-of-band networking equipment, services and optical components for high-speed carrier and enterprise networks, has announced that its LambdaDriver has qualified for technical acceptance based upon the standards of the U.S. Department of Agriculture or ‘USDA’ Rural Utilities Service or ‘RUS.’

The company provides a full line of packet-optical transport or ‘P-OTS,’ carrier Ethernet, 40G networking and out-of-band networking products. LambdaDriver is an optical transport system provided by MRV useful in building high-performance enterprise access, metropolitan carrier and long haul transport networks. It is a multi-functional, compact, modular wavelength division multiplexing or ‘WDM’ system that supports both dense wavelength division multiplexing or ‘DWDM’ and coarse wavelength division multiplexing or ‘CWDM’ technology. The solution is the third product line offered by MRV after Fiber Driver and OptiSwitch that have been certified by RUS.

RUS is a national agency apart from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration that distributes $7.2 billion apportioned by Congress to mostly rural telecom carriers to stimulate the development of broadband infrastructure and services, as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The program is aimed at establish new and vital services in rural areas to help rural utilities expand and keep their technology up to date. For any equipment to be technically certified by the RUS, it must comply with the USDA Rural Development agency’s standards for a variety of hazards including corrosion, weather, fire, earthquake and vandalism.

After this qualification by RUS, rural independent telephone operating companies leveraging MRV’s LambdaDriver solution will be able to qualify for a federal subsidization of their fiber optic infrastructure rollouts.

In a release, Noam Lotan, CEO, MRV Communications, said with the RUS’ recent announcement of a second round of funding, this acceptance places MRV in a position to offer its entire Carrier Ethernet and optical transport solution for the next series of rural broadband expansions. Lotan continued that by implementing the LambdaDriver, rural service providers can confidently build high-performance optical transport networks at a fraction of the cost of competing solutions to serve key community anchor institutions, such as libraries, hospitals, community colleges, universities and public safety institutions,

Prayerna Raina, Research Analyst, Frost & Sullivan (News - Alert), said access to telephone and Internet services are no doubt critical to the success of businesses across the country, but many rural businesses are struggling with slow Internet and insufficient wireless coverage. Raina noted that with the LambdaDriver and other optical networking platforms certified by the RUS, rural service providers have access to the solutions that can provide these businesses the services they need to thrive.

In September, MRV Communications introduced its Fiber Driver EM316T1E1-XY, belonging to company’s next-generation optical media converters family. The new driver reportedly brings in ultra high-speed protocol support with the flexibility of multi-rate and small form-factor pluggable or ‘SFP’ design.