SAN JOSE, Calif. – Open XR Forum announced today that AT&T, Colt, Crown Castle, Telefónica and ZAYO have joined the industry initiative and MSA effort to advance the deployment of software-configurable point-to-point and point-to-multipoint coherent optical networks utilizing XR optics pluggable transceiver technology. Open XR Forum is a consortium bringing together network operators, equipment vendors and component suppliers committed to building the foundation for a new generation of coherent optical solutions that will cost-effectively meet demand for greater network scalability and flexibility. XR optics is the industry's first coherent optical solution that can solve the access and aggregation challenges faced by network operators caused by the misalignment between network traffic patterns and the technology used to transport that traffic.

The Forum also released the "Open XR Concept Introductory White Paper," available for download from the Open XR Forum site. The white paper describes the limitations and shortcomings of today's point-to-point optical networks and the inherent performance, cost-effectiveness and network agility benefits of point-to-multipoint coherent optical networks utilizing digital subcarriers. The white paper also presents key technical design considerations along with network management and control concepts and highlights a number of important application scenarios.

The significant growth in bandwidth driven by 5G, high-speed broadband and cloud-based services places substantial pressure on network operators to increase capacity while limiting capital expenditures and reducing operating costs. The overriding objective of Open XR Forum is to dramatically reduce network total cost of ownership by simplifying network architectures, enabling dynamic and on-demand capacity allocation and implementing software and component technologies that are compatible across multiple generations of optical technologies. Read more about the benefits of Open XR Forum.

Open XR Forum membership is expanding to cover a wide range of industry participants and applications and currently includes AT&T, BT, Colt, Crown Castle, Infinera, Liberty Global, Lumen Technologies, Telefónica, Verizon, Windstream and ZAYO. To learn more about becoming a member, visit www.openxrforum.org.

www.openxrforum.org