PALO ALTO, Calif. -- Agilent Technologies Inc. (NYSE: A) today announced it will demonstrate a 10 Gb/s XENPAK fiber optic transceiver transmitting network traffic over 300 meters of multimode fiber at the European Conference on Optical Communications (ECOC) in Stockholm, Sweden, Sept. 6-8 at Booth 439.

Agilent is leading the IEEE 802.3aq task force, which is defining a standard for using electronic dispersion compensation (EDC) with 10 Gb/s serial Ethernet fiber optic transceivers to economically drive short-range transmissions over legacy multimode fiber. Corporate IT departments are demanding a cost-effective solution for the existing enterprise LAN infrastructure before widespread upgrades to 10 Gb Ethernet are implemented.

At ECOC, Agilent will demonstrate its XENPAK fiber optic transceiver module, featuring EDC, transmitting a 10 Gb/s data stream error-free over a distance of 300 meters using legacy multimode FDDI grade 62.5/125 micron fiber. Agilent test equipment will show the eye diagram before and after EDC is applied.

"Today there are short-reach, multimode solutions supported by the 10GBASE-LX4 standard, but we believe the use of 10GBASE-LRM with EDC will provide our customers with a significantly lower cost solution," said Tom Fawcett, worldwide marketing manager for Agilent's Fiber Optic Products Division. "We expect to sample XENPAK and X2 modules with EDC by the end of 2004, with production quantities available in 2005."

Agilent Technologies Inc.