Verizon Expects 100G Deployment in 2010

Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE: VZ) expects to deploy standards-based 100-Gigabit optical fiber transmission in its network later this year, following the completion of a multi-vendor, 100-Gig field trial that used standards-based optics end-to-end.

The field trial used a Juniper Networks Inc. (NYSE: JNPR) T1600 core router and NEC America Inc. ’s SpectralWave DWDM system connected via a 100GBASE-LR4 client interface using 100G CFP optical transceiver modules from Finisar Corp. (Nasdaq: FNSR). (See Verizon, Juniper, NEC Complete 100G Trial.)

The field trial comes after Verizon’s first live deployment of 100G technology, but represents another step forward because it used technology compliant with the 100G standard, scheduled to be ratified by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc. (IEEE) and the International Telecommunication Union, Standardization Sector (ITU-T) in June. (See Verizon Switches On 100G in Europe.)

“Now we can start drawing timelines, and we are comfortable saying we will have standards-compliant 100G technology from multiple vendors in 2010,” says Glenn Wellbrock, director of backbone network design for Verizon. “It is certainly going to happen this year.”

The field trial took place over a 1,520-kilometer, optically amplified section of the Verizon network in the north Dallas area.

Verizon chose to work with Juniper, NEC, and Finisar for differing reasons, Wellbrock says. Juniper supplies many of Verizon’s core routers, but the carrier had not yet done 100G with NEC. Finisar was the first vendor to have the pluggable units for 100G to link the two.

Verizon no longer needs to do 100G trials, Wellbrock notes, but is ready to move ahead with deployments on key routes once the 100G technology is “productized” -- produced by its vendors at favorable cost points. Some of what was used in the field trial is prototype technology.

The need for 100G is already there on some fiber optic routes, he contends: “In certain areas of the network, we can use this right away, while in others it won’t be needed for some time.”

— Carol Wilson, Chief Editor, Events, Light Reading