SUNNYVALE, Calif. -- Infinera has joined the Ethernet Alliance to further the development and acceptance of Ethernet transport technologies for carriers and service providers.

Ethernet is playing a growing role in carrier networks, driven by high-bandwidth enterprise applications such as data warehousing and the growing importance of video traffic on the Internet. Gigabit Ethernet is an economically compelling transport for today’s networks and 10 Gigabit Ethernet is becoming increasingly significant. With the current double- and triple-digit annual growth in traffic, 100 Gigabit Ethernet will soon become an economic solution for large networks.

“Many of the interconnections between adjacent routers in the networks of leading carriers already surpass 80 Gigabits per second (Gb/s) today. Ethernet and IP link aggregation technologies are being utilized, with several individual 10 Gb/s links bonded together. As these links grow into the hundreds of Gb/s, the scalability of these technologies rapidly breaks down. The industry needs to move to the next generation of Ethernet transport, which means 100 Gb/s and beyond,” said Infinera co-founder and CTO Drew Perkins.

Infinera Corp. (Nasdaq: INFN)