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Toronto networking giant Nortel (News - Alert) today unveiled what it calls the industry’s first commercially available 100G “solution,” and announced that Verizon (News - Alert) has deployed the solution in Europe.

Nortel’s 100G “solution” encompasses technology that allows service providers to increase the bandwidth of today’s typical 10G infrastructure by ten times without the need to rip and replace major parts of the network.

 

This removes a significant cost barrier for today’s service providers with constrained CAPEX budgets, according to Nortel. Using Nortel’s solution, Verizon today said it has become the world’s first service provider to deploy 100G technologies in a live commercial network. Using its existing network, Verizon is carrying live enterprise customer private IP traffic over a 100G wavelength on an 893km link between Paris and Frankfurt. Even more impressive is the fact that the 100G wavelength was simply added alongside in-service 10G wavelengths in the same fiber.

 

Analyst firm Ovum (News - Alert) has reported that global demand for 100G line side DWDM transponders will grow rapidly over the next five years, reaching $455 million by 2014.

“Nortel’s 100G optical solution uses groundbreaking technology that allows service providers to meet the demands that high bandwidth applications like HD video on demand, online gaming and cloud computing are putting on their network,” said Philippe Morin, president of Nortel’s Metro Ethernet Networks division. “Our 100G solution is the result of years of dedicated research and development into this cutting-edge technology, and builds on two decades of innovation leadership in the optical industry.”

Mark Wegleitner, senior vice president of technology at Verizon, called the 100G accomplishment a milestone for the communications and optical industries.

 

“This type of cooperation and vision results in innovative and progressive solutions and will continue to be a requirement to successfully meet the increasing bandwidth demands of the future,” Wegleitner said.

 

Nortel’s 100G solution is based on technologies such as coherent detection, DP QPSK modulation and advanced electronic digital signal processing techniques, all of which Nortel said it is the first and only vendor to successfully commercialize to date.

 

More than 50 service providers and operators worldwide already rely on these technologies in live deployments of Nortel’s 40G solution, which has been generally available since May 2008. In addition to Verizon’s live 100G deployment, Nortel has previously conducted eight successful trials of its 100G solution with service providers around the world.

“While other vendors rush to develop advanced 100G optical transport technologies, Nortel’s 100G solution has been tested and proven with some of the world’s largest service providers, including Verizon,” said Ron Kline, principal analyst, Network Infrastructure, Ovum. “Nortel continues to push the envelope with 100G optical transmission, keeping its technology edge in high-capacity transport.”