BÖBLINGEN, Germany -- Agilent Technologies Inc., todayannounced new 2.5 Gb/s small-form-factor (SFF) fiber-optic transceiversfor SONET/SDH short reach (SR) and intermediate reach (IR) links. Thenew transceivers, Agilent’s first SFF devices at this speed, areimportant elements in relieving the networking bandwidth bottleneckcurrently experienced in metropolitan area networks (MANs).The advent of Gigabit Ethernet products (led by Agilent as the world’sleading provider of Gigabit Ethernet transceivers) has eased much of thebandwidth crunch inside local area network (LAN) enterprises. In thecore of the wide area network (WAN), dense wave division multiplex(DWDM) solutions have provided significant bandwidth. The bottleneck isnow centered in metro networks that ring cities and lead to the network core. Users havefound it difficult to procure sufficient numbers of the OC-48transceivers needed in this application. Agilent’s new transceivers,designed to be produced in very high-volume, are intended to break openthe MAN bottleneck.

“Agilent is the leader in SFF fiber-optic transceivers; we recentlyshipped our 2.5-millionth SFF unit,” said David Knights, manager ofAgilent’s Fiber Optics Business Unit. “We are now applying ourcompetency in high-volume manufacturing to an area of market need, andour customer base has shown great enthusiasm for this initiative.”

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